I Belong to Them

New York, New York

We safely arrived at the airport and just barely got through security in time for takeoff. I sat and did not a single thing during the entire flight, while my mom dozed. I let my mind wander, and I ended up thinking about the situation that I was in. It was very simple, and I treated it as such. Most teens wouldn't want to be moved from one state, to a completely different other. Most teens would put up a fight, or say that they are not going, even though they had to. 

                       The situation is a very practical one. It happens all the time. A company relocates the worker, and the kid has to go with the worker, because said worker is their parent. Very, very simple. If It had happened three weeks from now, i could have refused to come. I probably wouldn't have anyway. I'm not into the whole "I'm grown, and I can take care of myself" junk. I had a job as a cashier, but I'm storing the money I make. I refuse to waste money on things that I get free from my mom. Plus, I'm not even finished with high school yet. I still have my senior year remaining; school starts in less than a week.

                      Mom got a transfer from the little branch, in Florida, to the main head in New York. She moved up in her company, so I guess she has to move up in the country too.  I'm the type of person that keeps to myself. Or I like to tell myself that.  (The more you say it, the more you believe it, right? ) That is all I know, since that is all the information my mom offered, and I didn't ask for more. 

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                      I don't know a lot of things about New York, but one thing I do know is that it's crowded.  The plane landed about half an hour ago, and I stuck close to my mom while we were getting our luggage, trying to work them through the sea of people at the international airport.  I managed to roll/drag all of my three suitcases, while my mom was struggling with her own baggage. I don't even know how I did it,  but somehow, I got all three out and on the sidewalk. I know for sure I did some kicking. Mom hailed two cabs. She told them the location we were headed at during the "force the suitcase in the trunk" shenanigan. 

                     I hopped on, and the driver rode onto the flow of traffic, which was painfully slow.  After a few miles...? Many miles? I wouldn't know, since I nodded off a few times. I noticed that there was barely ant traffic, and the buildings were getting shorter. After another few miles and some turns, the cab pulled up in front of a large white gate.  On each side of the gate, stood men with black clothing, with the word "SECURITY" written in bold white on the colorless shirt. One of the two men stalked to the cab my mom was in, which was in front of this one. 

                       I watched as mom rolled down her window, and dialect passed in between the two.  The security guard signaled to the other, who in turn, pulled a tiny remote control from his pocket and aimed it at the gate. It opened in two, and the cabs drove on. A few minutes passed, then we pulled up to another gate, this one being black. This time around, mom exited the cab, walked to the gate, and tapped away at the pin-code thingy. 

                         What's the huff about security in this place? Geez Louise.  I haven't seen any sight of life for about a mile, or however far were from the the first gate. Now, I don't know a lot about New York, but from what I've read, It's supposed to be crowded. Like, an endless over-flow of people. It seemed strange to me that apart from the two security guards, I haven't seen not one person. 

                  Mom swiftly entered the taxi cab, and we proceeded forward. My jaw slacked, and my eyebrows rose to my hairline as I looked at the greenery around me. There were trees and neatly trimmed bushes , but not a building in sight. I was starting to wonder if mom and I got on the right plane, or if I slept so much that I did not notice we crossed the border into Philadelphia. I kept pondering on that thought, for a moment or so, until I saw houses or apartments. I didn't know which. 

                Honestly, I hated brown. This color is a really light brown, adjoining beige on some extra details. They were at least three stories tall. I should just call them apartments.  There were two set of stairs that crisscrossed between every two houses, connecting them. The reason I would think of them as houses is because the area between each set of two apartments/houses/buildings/whatever they are, is about the size of a football stadium. If I was counting correctly, there were about eight sets in total, four on each side of the road.