A Whole New World by Minji Kim, Ava Wong (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📖

"Melanie, honey. Are you all packed up for today?" "Yeah Mom. I told you like 4 times already that I'm done," I reply. "Ughhhhh.." I whisper to myself. Anyone who's had a painful past like me, understands me, but it feels like I'm trapped and no one understands me. I just want to escape this deep, dark world that I've been living in for the past 3 years. I'm sick and tired of everything about North Carlolina. I'm walking out of my room that I cried myself to sleep in, without even turning my back. I'm scared that if I do, all the memories are going to rush through my head and I'm going to collapse on the floor. That's when my brother screams my name on the top of his lungs so that I can hear him finally. I didnt even realize that he was calling my name for the past 20 seconds."MELANIE!!!" "Huhh? What happened James? What??" "You left Fluffy on your bed. Poor Fluffy's going to have to feed himself if you leave him." I forgot all about Fluffy, my stuffed animal maybe I was trying to get out of my room a little too fast. Oh, I wonder what goes through his little 4 year old brain. "Okay thanks James. I'll go get it in a second." "Why not now? Fluffy wants you to get him now," he replies. I want to turn around and get Fluffy, but I'm scared. It may sound stupid, but I don't want to hurt myself anymore. I mentally prepare myself and run into my room. As much as I don't want to, the memories come back. This is exactly why I didn't want to come into this room. I almost start crying until I get myself together and my younger sister Caroline reminds me that my Mom and Dad are loading the car. I remind myself that I can start a new life and forget about all of the things I've been through the past 3 years. I grab my suitcase and head for the door. I make sure that we're not leaving anything behind. Then I take James, Toby and Caroline along with their stuff and walk out. As soon as i get into the car, my Dad already knows that I'm excited. "You ready Mel?" I hesitate for a second and say," Of course I am." Then my Mom says to my Dad, "She's obviously not that excited to leave all her friends behind." Me? Are you talking about me? Oh, you mean the so-called friends that betrayed me to act cool? Yeah I'm not sad or hurt to leave them behind. Of course I'm not sad. After all that they did to me, heck no. If anything, I'm more than happy to leave stupid ol' Charlotte and Crystal. That's when the car starts moving and I actually realize that this is actully happening. "Oh my gosh," I try to say as quiet as possible. My baby brother, Toby's taking a nap and we have to talk quietly for him not to wake up. How can I possibly hold in all this excitement for 8 hours?! Toby's obviously not going to sleep for 8 straight hours, but I have to at least act like I'm sad to leave North Carolina. I can't even fall asleep, that's how excited I am. We stop at McDonald's for some food on the way and of course everyone eyes my family and I as we walk in. Toby's crying because he needs his diaper changed, James and Caroline are whining because they want happy meals. I mean, who wouldn't look at us as we walk in? We get our food and get back into the car. We eat our food and my Dad starts the engine again. We only have 2 hours left until we arive in the beautiful Big Apple. I try to listen to some music on my iPod, but I don't even concentrate on the music. All I can think about is how amazing living as a city girl is going to be. 2 hours flew by like a second. The bright lights of the skyscrapers catch my attention. "Yayyy! We made it!" My parents might think I'm a little too excited to be in New York, but I don't care anymore. I held it in for 8 hours. We get to our hotel. I can't wait to get out of this cramped car and breathe the city air. I'm so stoked that i forget to unbuckle Caroline, James and Toby from their car seats. I open the door, step out and take a deep breath and as I exhale, I feel a thousand times better. "Here's to a new life and a new start!" Damn that felt good to get out. "Melanie, will you please take the youngsters out of the car?" says my Mom as she's unloading the car. I realize that I've been way ahead of myself. I unbuckle them one by one and it seems like they're all fussy from being in the car for a while. I also let them take in the city air and I don't know if it's all in my head, but it seems like the air in New York has something in it because calms all of us down. We walk into the hotel that looks enormous from outside but even bigger on the inside. My Mom and Dad go up to the front desk to get our room. We don't actually own a house in New York yet, but we're officially signing the contract tomorrow. The owners of the house still live there and they're in the midst of packing everything up so we can start moving in tomorrow. My Mom's holding Toby and my Dad's holding Caroline's hand. I'm sitting on one of those cool chairs that they have in the hotel lobbies with James. Personally, James is my favorite sibling. Why wouldn't he be? He's so cute and has a bright personality but my parents just don't see what I see in him. They say they love us equally, but James and I are always left out. Honestly, I don't care about who they love the most and whatnot, but I'm just scared that James' bright personality's gonna start fading away because of the little amount of attention he gets. "Can we get ice cream Daddy?" says James. "No James, you eat your dinner and then we'll think about getting you a scoop of ice cream." Here's where it all goes down. "Daddyyyyy. Can we prettyyy please get ice cream?" says Caroline. "Oh alright. How could I possibly say no?" "Dad, James just asked you and you said no, why'd you say yes to Caroline?" "It's because she's a baby." "But she's only a year younger. James needs the same amount of love Dad.." "I love them both the same, it's just that Caroline has that adorable face that I can't resist." "So, you're saying that James is ugly and you could say no to him all you want?" "We'll discuss this upstairs. You need to learn to not talk back young lady." I could just see the jealousy and sadness on James' face. He walks over to my Mom and pulls on her arm but she's busy with Toby and the lady at the front desk. She tells him to tell me what he wants to say. Poor James has no one to turn to. I wal over to him, give him a big fat hug and pat his back."It's okay James. They're just busy." "Mommy and Daddy don't love me.." He starts crying and crying his heart out. My Mom finally settles with the front desk and she comes runnning over to James. "What's wrong James? Why are you crying?" "You don't love me Mommy." "Oh James I love you veryy much and I always will." James starts sniffling and he wipes his tears. My Mom and Dad both realize that they ignore James a lot and my Mom feels bad that she starts crying and then my Dad starts crying too. We finally get to our hotel room after 35 minutes of being in the lobby. I walk in and my jaw drops. "The view's amazing from up here!" "Wooah!" scream Caroline and James. We then put our things down and I lay on the bed and all the good vibes are back. I just know that living in New York is gonna be great! After everything's a little more organized, we go down to eat dinner. We go to the hotel dining area, so the food isn't great but it's good. I order a chicken parmesan, my Mom and Dad get pesto pasta and all the young ones get spaghetti. We finifh up our food and we head back upstairs. I take a shower, change into my pajamas, I fall onto the bed so James and Caroline jump up and down on the bed. I let them jump on the bed only because it'll probably be fun for them and it tires them out. I read James and Caroline The Cat in the Hat and they fall asleep almost instantly. I fall asleep when everyone else is sleeping and I thank God for all the great blessings that I have to be coming to New York and being with my family. I fall asleep faster than I thought I would. It seems like I was pretty tired but I didn't think I was. I weirdly dreamt about Paris and a guy told me that I was fated to meet someone and I woke up. Ugh I wanted to know what happens next!

It's the next day and I wake up from the sunlight beaming on my face. I guess it didn't only bother me because everyone starts waking up.

Publication Date: 01-17-2016

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