3. Florida

Haven arrives to Florida to see her new home for the next seven months.

My plane arrived in Sebring Regional Airport around 3:00PM that day. Sebring was a small town 102 miles away from St. Petersburg. It wasn't that impressive. I'd researched it as we where on the plane with my laptop and some brochures. When we finally arrived, I couldn't stay still. I hated planes so much. By the time we landed, I'd used the bathroom four times, causing my claustrophobia to act up. I practically ran over people getting off the plane. Finally, I found a garbage can by the lady's restroom. I let loose the contents of my stomach, knowing that a child was probably pointing and laughing at me somewhere. After I finished being sick, I walked into the lady's room. Not much to see here. Just a bathroom. In Florida, I thought maybe they would paint palm trees on the walls or something. I took my toothbrush out of my suitcase and brushed my teeth, leaning onto the cold white sink as I tried to get rid of the stink in my breath. 

I finished brushing my teeth and I threw the toothbrush into the trash. No use in that one ever again. I looked up at myself and wondered if my father where outside in the car, maybe with a present for me. Some flowers or a necklace for his baby girl. Then I remembered. Dad didn't want me. He never had longed for a baby girl, always a baby boy, and anyways, why would he get me a present? Dad didn't miss me. He had a new baby coming along and he just wanted me around so he wouldn't have to deal with Cynthia's pregnancy himself.

I swore and pounded my clenched fist at the white granite sink in frustration. It hurt and I hated him. The pain in my hand didn't distract me from the hate I had for my father in that small moment. No matter how much I did hate him though, I always found that little speck of hope in me that would love to have my fathers rare presence in sight. 

"Like that's ever going to happen" I sighed, grabbing the handle of my suitcase as I left the bathroom. 

I asked around to find the parking lot and a kind old woman named Gina told me exactly where to go to find the doors. I know I probably looked alien here in Florida. Everywhere I looked, I saw little athletic blonde girls with soft blue eyes. They had a smile on their face and you could see perfectly tanned arms stretched out as they waving to their family, friends, and boyfriends. Then, here was me in my too-big grey Academic Bowl sweatshirt and my weird red shorts that I've had since eighth grade. I was too pale and too different. I fingered my red hair in disapproval with myself. I wasn't athletic either. Not anymore. My muscles had faded away a long time ago and now I was just skin and bones. I was something I used to make fun of. Scrawny. Nerdy. Weird. Two years ago, I would have fit in with all these girls perfectly. But now? I was creepy and different and I hated everything about it. I left the airport with horrible feelings about my looks. They thoughts would pass though. They always did when I felt like old Haven.

 My father finally pooled up in front of the airport after I'd been outside for half an hour. I groaned and pulled the door of the black Ford Focus open. Dad smiled up and me and blinked.

"I'm late, I know. I was running errands for work." He pointed at the four coffees in the passenger seat and the two in the cup holder. "Sorry Haven, but you'll have to sit in the back."

 I slammed the door shut and opened the other door with anger swelling up inside me like a balloon about to pop open from too much air. I couldn't freaking believe it. There where already two people in the back and a car-seat for the baby. What the heck? Was I expected to sit on one of the two guys? How about in the car-seat? 

"Dad? Where am I going to sit?" I asked.

He looked back at everyone. 

"Jared? Kyle?" he said. "Could you scoot over and let Haven squish herself in?"

There was no way in hell I was going to sit by these guys. I didn't know them and I did not want to be pushed into them. What the hell? If Jared or Kyle held the coffee, I'd have enough room to sit in the passenger seat up front. So yet again, I slammed a door and opened another.

I picked up the coffee tray and passed them to the Jared guy. He gave me a questioning look as he nervously took the tray, looking at my father just in case he would object to my actions. I may be the most stubborn girl alive, but no one forces me into a back seat with two strange guys and a car-seat.

"What are you doing?" Dad asked me, obviously a rhetorical question.

I smirked. "I'm sitting by my dad in a car as two guys I don't know sit in the backseat holding a freaking tray of coffee with a car-seat that has no reason to be there since the baby isn't due for about seven months anyways. Deal with it."

My father kept quiet for the first five minutes before interrupting the silence with a weak try at small-talk.

"Jared and Kyle live right down the road from me, Haven. I'm actually giving them a ride home from basketball practice. Isn't it a good thing to know you'll have a couple of friends your own age living nearby?"

I should have kept quiet. You know how people are always saying that if you speak up, it'll help the situation. Don't listen to that, it's a bunch of lies. People don't like the truth and they don't like your opinion. No though, I broke my own advice and I said:

"Yeah, It's great. You can have the two sons of your dreams right there down the street for you to steal. Hey dad, maybe their mom will take me and the unborn baby if it's a girl. You two could switch and you could finally have your dream family. Great, right?"

Dad shut up for the rest of the car ride. So did Kyle and Jared. 

I felt kind of bad but then again, why should I? Dad was late while getting coffee while I sat on a bench after throwing up for about fifteen freaking minutes. This day sucked. I wanted to go home, turn on the heat, pop in a movie, and cuddle up on my bed with a book and some cold Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream from Ben & Jerry. Mom would make me some blueberry pancakes like she did when I was little and I would make a delicious cup of green tea. I longed for this scene in my head, nostalgia ruining my thoughts.Yet I scolded myself as I thought it. I didn't need all this in my day to make me happy. I needed school. I needed my books. I needed my job, and I wouldn't get a job here in Sebring. My research of the town on the plane showed that the unemployment rate here is 10.70% while the national average is 9.10%. 

When we pulled up to Dad and Cynthia's, I was expecting my dad to trudge off into the house and not appear to us for a couple hours. Instead, he wrapped his arm around me as we walked up the drive. It didn't feel right. I felt like he suddenly thought he had a form of power over me and all of my actions. I tried shrugging him off but it turned out that Dad was as stubborn as I am. Cynthia came out of the house with her arms stretched wide. Her belly bulged out about three inches from the last time I'd seen her. She was wearing pink sweatpants and a loose pink tank-top. Cynthia wrapped her arms around me, crushing me till I started to have trouble to breath.

"Cynthia?" I asked. "Maybe let me have some air?"

"Oops!" she squealed as she let go of me and pulled on my hand, leading me inside to see the house.

The house's outside shown how huge it really was. The outside wasn't siding or bricks or anything like that. It was cherry-wood and I knew for a fact that it was expensive. There where four palm trees right on the front lawn and I had to say that for a house in Sebring, it was amazing. The house was two stories high, with a deck and a pool in the back and a balcony on the roof of the house. There was a little metal fence about three feet high. The gate was white and it surrounded the little grass on the lawn and a palm tree. I loved the house, but it didn't feel homey. It felt consuming and...abnormally clean. I hated the feeling in the air. I knew Dad had money, but I never figured this much. 

Cynthia led me inside of the house and I swear I stopped breathing. Everything was a brilliant color of white, except for the cabinets in the kitchen, the floor, and the railway by the stairs. Nothing was dirty. I couldn't see a speck of dust from the streams of light pouring in through the windows. I gasped and blinked my eyes twice. 

"Shoes off, okay?" Cynthia said, smiling as she saw me take in the house's appearance. 

She was proud of this house. Proud of her money and her fiance. Too bad she'd never be that proud of her soon-to-be step-daughter..

My room was on the top floor, and I found that it had a little ladder in the corner that led up to the roof balcony. I could open the little door and go right on up to the roof. I was glad about that. The rest of the room? Everything was shockingly pink. The curtains, the bed-frame, the comforter, the dresser, and the curtains...all of the furniture was so brightly pink that it could give me a migraine. I longed for my own room. I loaded the dresser with my clothes and I took off the pink sheets and the comforter from my bed. I laid my own blankets and pillows down, all a dull green color. I hung up my own curtains and I put some posters and pictures on the walls. Having my own things in the overly pink room took away a little of it's girly and cutesy feeling. I threw myself on the bed and cuddled the pillow, my eyelids as heavy as the burden the next seven months would be.

Author's Note

I worked hard and after the last chapter, I hope its good.
I'm sorry the second chapter wasn't that satisfying and I hope to God that this one is.

Reviews

[Caitlyn Murray]

Very good.

[Coyote Poetry]

A very strong chapter. I like the many situations and interaction of the people in the story. Gave the story some foundation and strengthen the main character. A very good ending. Sometime body need a place to rest. A excellent chapter.
Coyote

[Bridget Murphy]

I love it, its amazing how you set the scene of her new home.!!!:)

[idk]

I love it! Best chapter yet. It was really good. Great job, and just so you know the last chapter was satisfying, at least I thought it was. But anyways can't wait for more!