1986
CHAPTER I. DRIVE

It was May 9th when I moved from Pennsylvania to Bridgemont Valley, Maine. My parents and I had spent the morning packing our things into the reasonably-spacious RV connected to my father's Audi 80. It was 8am when we finally began the 10-hour drive to our new home.

'Are you excited, Adriana?' My mother turned to me as soon as the vehicle began driving.

'Yeah, very.' I smiled, but I was nervous inside. Being a senior in a whole new high school was going to be tough; new friends, new studies, a whole new way of life. I wondered whether it was going to be difficult to fit in.

The reason for our move was simple to explain. My family had struck gold, well to be specific, it was my mother's writing that ultimately caused our financial success. She was reluctant to publish a set of poems, but my father, who made a living from selling paintings, told her to take the chance. Let's just say, it was the best decision of her life. Not only was that book a bestseller within three days, bookshops around the country were running out of stock within a week; feminist poetry sold out fast, I guess.

But we were your average middle-class family, middle-class arguments and middle-class dinners around the dining table. We had lived in a very small condo in Pennsylvania, with a small loft space in the roof. My room was the size of a tiny en-suite bathroom and my parents' bedroom was equally as minuscule; it's a wonder we even made it this far without killing each other.

'Are you excited for school?' It was my father's turn to ask. He had just began playing his Paul Simon tape through the car's radio.

'Yes. Nervous but excited.'

'Oh, you shouldn't be nervous. You'll fit in like a glove.' My mother interrupted, her hands getting to work on knitting a scarf in the passenger seat. I found my eyes wandering to the side windows, watching the mountains and landscapes pass us by.

'We didn't use much space in that RV. There were only a few things to go in there.' I say after a few minutes. The RV only held my father's easel, our books (my family were huge bookworms) and some of my mother's treasured houseplants. There was even a cactus and a spider plant on each seat either side of me in the back of the car.

'That's true.' My father replied with a nod.

'Jeff, you know I needed that space for my houseplants. They need space to breathe.'

'Yes, of course, darling.' He sent a comedic look towards me from the rear-view mirror and I chuckled.

My mother was very eccentric, her hair was wavy blonde and she always wore mid-length colourful dresses that belonged in the 70's. She was also obsessed with a number of hobbies; knitting, reading and writing only being a few. My father, on the other hand, was purely obsessed with artwork and the skill of painting. If he didn't have a little swipe of paint on his clothing, you knew he wasn't having a good day. He also spent a great deal of time twirling the end of his moustache in his fingers.

'We're moving to a place called Sedate Hollow.' I divert my eyes away from the yellow paint stain on his jeans and towards his voice. 'It's meant to be the bees-knees, the best place to be in all of the neighbourhood.'

The 10 hours passed remarkably swiftly, though The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice helped a great deal. My mother also seemed to find solace in her knitting, the scarf almost complete when we arrived outside the two-story home.

Just from viewing the outside, I knew it was homely and it was a great deal larger than my last home already. There was a white moving van already situated outside with two bulky men stepping to-and-fro with furniture. They were carrying our auburn sofa when we parked our car.

I couldn't resist leaving the car and immediately stepping inside the home. The living room was the first room to be seen from the front door, the large sofa now placed beside its armchair sibling. There was our small television upon a new wooden cabinet just slightly before the seating. A circular tan carpet elongated the space. Behind the television was our wooden dining table, with four leather seats placed in close proximity; a stark difference to having the table pushed against the wall in our last home. A narrow staircase was beside the table.

Leaving the living room led to the kitchen, basic white in colour yet looking very fresh. The window looked like a landscape painting as it revealed our new spacious garden where my father was to spend his days painting. Coming from a door to the right was the passage into my parent's bedroom, a mixture of maroon and rose tones, leading further to their own en-suite bathroom.

A spark of excitement flew through my veins as I re-entered the dining room, rushing up the stairs. I was first met by a basic hallway with two doors. One door led to a family-size bathroom, holding both a shower and bath. However, the other door led to a lilac-styled room that was to be my bedroom. The immediate space of my room held a desk, something that couldn't fit into our old house, and a dresser. My finger traced over the wooden dresser, lightly touching the silver handles as though they could be broken at any moment.

I turned to the other side of my room to lay eyes on my bed, decorated with pillows and silk sheets; a little sofa beside it underneath the bay window.

This was something I could get easily used to.