Game of Hearts

Jenna Brooks’s POV

“Hurry up!! You’re going to be late for your flight!” I heard my mum yell from the kitchen.

Taking one final look at my room, I dragged my baggage out to the passage way. Although it had only been two months since we moved here, I was still going to miss my tiny room. I meant our tiny room since I shared the room with my little brother, Dustin whenever he came home from boarding school for holidays. There were only two rooms in the house.

As I closed the door behind me, I walked down the tiny passage into the living room. Dad was sitted, leg crossed as if he wasn’t moved by his daughter going thousands of miles away for senior year.

He glanced at me as he spoke, “Good Morning, Jenna,” he said, more blandly than I had hoped. I had already crossed my fingers for a laugh, or a hair rustle, or a hug, but they never came, or at least not yet. I was still hoping.

“How was your night?” I asked trying to ignite some sort of conversation.

“Fine.” He replied dryly.

I was desperate for something else to talk about with him. For some kind of connection. With Mom, it was effortless. Why did everything always feel so stuck with him?

Dad used to be fun and vibrant and energetic and interactive but after we lost everything and had to move to Cronners, he suddenly went cold and distant.

I dropped my baggage and made my way to the kitchen where mum was making my favorite cookies to go. She said it was a lucky charm and it had always helped her get over the fear of flying but I doubted that.

I watched mom bring out a flat disposable plate from her ‘bag of multiple stuffs’. Dustin and I always called it that because the bag seemed to always have everything, even stuffs we didn’t need. The house itself, contained a lot of stuffs we didn’t need.

Our house hadn’t always been like this, I meant full of junk and unnecessary items. When we moved in two months ago, it actually looked pretty normal—a humble house with a little clutter, nothing out of the ordinary.

But it began when dad’s company went bankrupt three months ago and we had to move from New York to Cronners, a small town in the middle of nowhere; that’s when mom started not being able to let go of things. That would mean it started two months ago. Since then the problem had only gotten worse.

Dad had to move all the unnecessary stuffs to the garage when the house could no longer take the load. Now, our garage was fillled floor to ceiling with stuffs. Stacks of plastic bins, filled with old papers and receipts and clothes we no longer used and toys and tangled jewelry and journals and Christmas decorations and old candy bar wrappers and expired makeup and empty shampoo bottles and broken mug pieces in Ziploc bags.

Sometimes, I would fantasize about us going back to our old house in New York. Then we’d have to pack up the stuff we wanted to take with us into moving boxes. And if we had to pack stuffs into moving boxes, that meant we’d have to sort through all the stuffs in this house and get rid of some of it. And that sounded wonderful.

“Honey Pie, I packed you some cookies” Mum said as she handed me the packed cookies. I could see the look in her eyes. She didn’t want me to leave but she had made the decision herself.

She didn't want me to spend senior year in Cronners, a town with a reputation for teenage troubles. Her decision, made over the summer, would have me spending my final year in Houston with Auntie Laurel Declan’s family.

I had been to Houston a lot when I was a kid. We used to go and spend summer holidays with the Declans; my mum’s best friend’s family. That was way before Dustin was born. Although I was just six then, I could still remember some memories I had with the Declan family. I was so happy when mum told me they agreed to be my host family in Houston so I transferred directly to the school the Declan kids attended. I really hoped I would get along with the family just fine, like when I was little.

“Did you pack your hair clips?” Mum inquired, her eyes scanning my long, dark hair.

I gave a slight shrug, “I don’t need them, Mum”

Mum had always treated me like a doll since I was little, she would pin butterfly clips to my hair. I had always hated the hairstyle, the rows of tightly wound hair fastened into place with painful, scalp-gripping little clips but I was over that now. I was finally eighteen and I didn’t need them anymore.

After seeing the disapproving look on my face, Mum decided to give up on the hair clips. She held my hands and squeezed them tightly as she spoke, “I’m gonna miss you, Honey Pie” she whispered underneath her breath as I could see her eyes filled with unshed tears.

I gave her a comforting smile and pulled her into a warm embrace, “I’ll only be gone for a year, Mum”

After what seemed like eternity, we finally broke the hug, the accumulated tears in Mum’s eyes finally falling.

“Laurel is gonna take good care of you, okay?” She reassured me and I responded with a smile, swallowing my own emotions.

The honk of dad’s minivan signaled that it was time to leave for the airport. With one last look at Mum, I grabbed my bags and rolled them out front. Dad helped me load them at the back of the van while I said quick goodbyes to our neighbors especially Mrs Rodrigo who always called on me every now and then to run errands for her. I wondered who she would call on now.

Soon, we were on our way to the airport. I gazed out of the window, silently saying goodbye to the place that had briefly become home.

…

I stood at the airport entrance, my heart heavy with the weight of the impending separation. Dad, eyes slightly red, approached me with a mixture of sorrow. “I’m so sorry I was cold to you, Jenna. I just felt so guilty that I couldn’t be a good father and support you like other dad’s do to their kids. I’m really sorry” He explained, his tone emotional.

I managed a weak smile through my unshed tears, my heart swelling with gratitude for being able to talk to him before I left. "You did all you could, Dad."

As the announcement for boarding echoed through the airport, we shared a tight embrace. The airport bustling around seemed to fade into the background, leaving just the two of us, a father and daughter bound by an unbreakable bond.

With one last heartfelt look, I turned towards the security checkpoint, Dad’s gaze following me.

“GoodBye, Cronners” I whispered underneath my breath.

…

Somehow, I slept throughout the five hours flight. I had only woken up about ten minutes before the flight landed and it was because of a dream I had. It was kind of scary, and funny too. In my dream, Auntie Laurel tried to make me serve her and her three daughters, that was the scary part.

The funny part was the fact that she didn’t have three daughters in real life. As far as I could remember, she had a daughter and two sons. The eldest was Conrad, we used to play tree house together when we were really really little and i could also remember the twins, Jamie and Jeanette. The last time I saw them was summer, twelve years ago and I hoped everything was still the same as I left it.

An unusual fear gripped me when the announcement was made that we were about to land. My palms became sweaty and it was then I realized I actually had the fear of landing, if that was even a thing. I grabbed the small box where mum packed the cookies she made me. I had left them out incase I got hungry but now I needed them for something else. To soothe my ‘out of the blue phobia’.

After taking a bite of the cookie, I felt my body sink into relaxation. Mum was right, the cookies did work magic.

As the plane landed, we all started getting off. I got my baggage from the security checkpoint and soon, I was breathing the Houston air. As my eyes scanned the sea of people waiting to welcome their families, I caught sight of an old man, holding a cardboard upside down with my name on it. I walked up to him as I dragged my baggage along.

“I’m Jenna Brooks” I announced to the old man who didn’t seem to hear me the first time until I had to repeat myself, “I’m Jenna Brooks”

He nodded affirmatively without saying a word and signaled me to follow him. I obliged and rolled my bag after him. He took me to where the limo was parked and asked me to hop in. Amidst breaths, I managed to get my bags inside. I hopped into the car and soon we were on our way to the Declan residence.

As we journeyed, I whined down the windscreen taking in the scenery. I couldn’t recall the roads any longer until we passed a billboard that read ‘WELCOME TO FOX LANE”