The small heap of white envelopes that sat on the kitchen counter taunted me painfully. Each of them holding information that would make or break the picture of my future.

Bold beads of sweat crawled down my back, then dispersed into the black faded jeans I wore. My right leg beat rhythmically as my heart rivaled the humming bird from anxiety. The dark marble dug into my elbows that caged the letters in, while I dug my hands violently into my huge head of loose Afro curls.

I sighed heavily, then mentally ordered the letters from my favorite to my least favorite before physically doing it with my hands. There were eight in total. I breathed heavily and whispered in a defeated tone, wiping my hands onto my jeans "Here goes nothing."

I stared at the letters, my hand hovering over them, undecided on which one to choose. Damn, the movies make this look so easy, people get all excited about college acceptance letter. This is terrifying. So I closed my eyes and grabbed one randomly, shook the contents to one side and tore the envelope open.

"Dear Mr Taylor," I mumbled, browsing through the letter trying to find the important part," we are happy you..,. Hmm..., Oh..., unfortunately after your review... " I dropped the letter. I looked at the counter and realized it was from my lesser liked section so I grabbed one from my more favorable pile and did the same " Dear Mr..., thank you for applying..,. however you do not meet..,." I dropped that one too. Eventually, I ran through all the letters and the responses were all the same, basically saying, 'sorry we don't want you in our school.'

I sighed softly and dragged my hands forcefully over my face, feeling the weight of my body being drained of all positive emotion. What could I have possibly done wrong on any of those applications? Normally, college would be chasing a student like me, but now it seems they couldn't care less. Guess you win some, you lose some.

I slowly slid off the high stool, did a little stretch and then looked at the clock that was mounted above the stove opposite the counter. It read ten thirty, and my eyes started to sting, so I started off to my room. I finished the kitchen and dining area, through the living room, up the stairs, passed one guest room on the left, one on the right, my big brother's room with weird moaning noises coming out of it on the left, the guest bathroom on the right and at the end of the hall my room.

I have the biggest room in the house, but it's OK with my family 'cause I got a massive walk in closet that takes up almost half of it. I had it built a couple of years back because of my unhealthy obsession with clothes and shoes.

I closed the door behind me slowly, then pressed my back firmly on the hard wooden surface. The door felt cold, but it was comforting because it reflected the dull mood I was in and it looked like the sky was soon to follow because through my room window I could see the stars slowly being snatched away by large fluffy dark clouds, mumbling lowly as lightning whipped the sky bitterly.

"Jay sweety," my mother's calm voice dragged me out of my dark La La Land.

"Mom," I answered shortly, not really in the mood to talk but trying not to be disrespectful because this entire situation was none of her fault.

"What did they say sweetheart?" She asked with a tinge of excitement in her voice. "Did they say yes? When will you be going? Which one will you be going to?"

My body tensed and the constant onslaught of questions made my head hurt, but I answered her questions anyway, in a heavy monotone. "Yeah, they said yes. I should be going tonight. The one on thirteen Robinson's Avenue off Sunset Street." As the words left my lips I could practically feel my mother's excitement shatter.

"Oh, baby.."

"No it's OK mom I'll just try again next year," I said, defeated, and turned to press my head on the door.

"Oh I'm sorry baby. Um do you want-,"

"Mom I really just want to get some sleep," I whispered through a sigh finally freeing myself from the door and staggering to my bathroom to catch a warm shower before bed. When I returned, I face planted on the mattress drowning in the arms of my life size teddy bear.

I woke up later to an exceptionally loud clap of thunder followed by the doorbell. I looked across my bed over Teddy at the neon blue digits on my silver alarm clock, decorated generously with dents from being thrown regularly.

"What the hell," I heard myself croak-whisper. It's three in the morning and someone was ringing the God damned doorbell!

The bell rang a few more times and, against my better judgement, I crawled out of my bed and quietly and slowly walked downstairs. I tried to swallow the lump of fear in my throat but each time I did, it only got bigger as I led my body steadily to the wooden, glass and metallic slab that separated me from whoever was out there.

Halfway down the flight, the doorbell stopped ringing but my body refused to go any further as time itself froze to see what would happen next. I almost lost my mind when the sky exploded, sending a mini earthquake through the house. How the hell is my family sleeping through all of this? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to steady my racing heart.

When I opened my eyes, I almost ran back up the stairs when the mail slot flipped open and spat out a letter. I waited like I was expecting it to get up and start attacking or something.

I edged forward slowly, keeping my eyes on the door, and when I was close enough I used my foot to drag the letter towards me, almost tearing the wet envelope.

It was oddly warm though, like it was tucked against someone's body.

I grabbed the letter quickly and examined it for damage but couldn't make much of it cause there wasn't much light except the thin beam of the streetlight coming through the frosted glass on the door.

I ran my hand over it, it was a lot dryer than I thought it would be but, all of this for a letter though.

I slowly walked into the family room and threw the letter on the coffee table. What could be so special about this letter that it had to be delivered at three in the morning?

I rolled my eyes feeling them make a fuss from their desire to continue my sleep, so I clambered back upstairs to go back to my peaceful abyss. Oh sweet, sweet sleep.

My peace was disturbed by an annoying buzzing slamming into my eardrums pulling me out of my unconscious state, but neither my mind nor my body was ready to wake up yet.

I swung my arm across the bed feeling for the cold metallic surface of the alarm, searching for an off button or a snooze button or something to make it shut up but I couldn't find anything so I curled my fingers around the small box then threw it roughly.

Silence returned to my ears and snuggling into my cuddle buddy, Teddy. I started slipping back into sleep, but the universe hated me.

"Jay get up!" my brother barged through the door, waking me up again.

"Does everything want to wake me up?" I grumbled in a heavy and pissed morning voice.

"Whatever dork, you have a letter.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, yawned and forcefully rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, grabbed a shirt and followed my brother, practically skipping down the hall.

"Weirdo."

"Ken is he up," I heard my dad shout at my brother from somewhere downstairs.

"I'm coming! I am coming!" I yelled a bit louder than intended while pushing my head through the shirt's neck whole. I heard mom giggle. What is wrong with these people today?

I bounced down the stairs yawning a bit annoyed that I was being corralled this early in the morning and I don't have school. Heck, I won't have school until probably another three hundred and sixty-five days at least.

I rolled the end of the shirt down and followed Ken into the family room where mom and dad sat evidently excited about something. I rolled my eyes at them and dropped myself into the recliner adjacent to them.

"OK I'm here. What do you bone heads want," I grumbled, adjusting the recliner, so I could lean back comfortably. God, I hate mornings.

Suddenly, something was tossed at me, hitting my chest and sliding into my lap.

"Read it," Ken said, chuckling as he sprawled himself on the single sofa across the coffee table in front of me.

I pushed out a huge gush of air, pressing my lips together before it sat up and snatched the letter from my thighs.

I held the envelope on one side, about to rip it open, but stopped short when the sheet of paper fell out the other side. I sighed and looked at my family very disapprovingly.

"What the envelope was blank, we wanted to know if it was ours," my mom squeaked defending them.

"Whatever," I rolled my eyes and snatched up the piece of paper. It felt crisp and warm, warm like the letter from last night. Where is that letter any way? The letter was a soft baby blue with a school emblem and fancy writing. This must be some really high-end school. Wait, which school is this? I scanned the letter carefully, slightly frowning until I caught the name. Stanton University. I had never heard of that school before.

"Have any of you guys ever heard of Stanton University?" I spoke aloud, looking at the letter and searching my mind for any familiarity.

I heard my mother hum in thought while high speed tapping told me that my brother was on his phone, but before Google could respond to his request, my dad answered my question.

"Yeah, I know that school. It's one of those schools for geniuses somewhere in the UK," dad spoke in a smooth yet deep voice as the memory resurfaced. I looked up at him silently begging him to continue. "I had a friend who went there. Dang smartest person I know. Got a full scholarship too. Little glasses Mikey."

"Wait you said Mickey as Micheal Wheeler," my brother said, looking from his phone to dad.

"Yeah," my dad said, smiling widely, showing off his perfect teeth, looking at Ken.

"Well, according to this, he is the president of the university now," Ken said, scrolling through his phone, then he suddenly turned the phone to dad " this is the guy we're talking about right?"

I lost interest in the conversation as my nerves started to itch to read the letter.

Dear Mr Taylor,

The board of Stanton University would like to inform you that you have been chosen as a candidate to participate in our scholarship program for attending the above institution. We have reviewed your portfolio, and you have exceeded the requirements to attend this institution.

Re the scholarship mentioned, you will have access to five years' tuition, all school material and living, and other expenses can be deducted from the ten thousand pounds monthly allowance you will receive upon campus entry. Any other issues and concerns will be addressed upon arrival. We will send you someone to assist in your preparation on the nineteenth of July, two weeks after the expected delivery of this letter.

With high regard,

President of Stanton University,

Mr Michael Wheeler

Whoa.

Just Whoa.

"Um Jay, you plan on stop catching flies and tell us what it said," Ken chucked after taking a picture of my expression.

"Huh?"

"The letter sweety. What did it say?" Mom said in a soft voice.

"Oh right here," I rushed out, tossing the letter to her, my mind still swimming in the information I had just read.

Ken jumped up to press himself against dad, stretching his neck to get his peek at the letter. Practically crushing dad.

"Wait, today is the nineteenth," Ken said, his eyebrows narrowing, and like set on cue, the doorbell rang, pulling attention from the letter to the door.

My brother hopped over the sofa arm and jogged to the door. Ken came back shortly, and he was accompanied by someone. He was smoothly tanned, wearing a pair of black slacks, a black turtle neck and a pair of black dress shoes. His dark brown hair draped down to his shoulders, hugging his high cheekbones and tickling his sharp jawline. He looks like a heartbreaker, and his piercing gray eyes only emphasized that theory.

"Hello, good morning. My name is Adrien Valentine, and I was sent here to assist Mr Taylor in his preparation for his travels in three days' time," he said courteously in an insanely thick British accent. He sounded polite, but he really didn't look particularly happy about all this.

"Wait three days!" Mom blurted at the realization of the short time.

"Yes, I assumed you would have known that when I arrived it wouldn't be long before our departure," he said, his face contouring in confusion.

"Yeah but we only just found the letter this morning," Ken said, looking up at Adrien from the armchair.

Adrien's eyebrows pushed together and lowered slightly.

" I'm confused. The letter was sent two and a half weeks ago. How are you saying you just got it?" his voice moving from fridge to freezer.

"Yeah, we found it this morning on the coffee table. I don't even know how it-,"

"Wait, you found this on the coffee table this morning?" I blurted, sitting up a little too quickly almost throwing myself onto said coffee table.

"Yeah, when I woke up this morning I found it sitting there," Ken said, sitting straight, looking at me like a troubled child.

This is the letter that was delivered last night. Well, this morning, actually.

"Um.. Adrien, I collected that letter this morning-"

"Jay I was up at five this morning."

"-at three this morning. Someone delivered the letter at three this morning." I looked at Adrien and his lips curled into a small smile but his icy eyes made the North Pole feel like the Caribbean.

"Well, I sincerely apologize to you and your family for this mishap, but the matter of your departure is outside my hands," he said with his eyes still digging through my soul. He's a bit scary.

"Well since we don't have much time let's get to it," dad said, kicking his legs up to swing his upper body off the couch. "Now if anyone else cares for breakfast. The kitchen is this way," he said, throwing his hand dramatically in the direction of the kitchen. Everyone got up and made a beeline to the kitchen while Adrien statued himself.

"Adrien, you're welcome to join us," my mother gestured to Adrien from the doorway to the kitchen.

"That would be much appreciated, Mrs Taylor but I already had something on my way here."

"Oh, OK. You can have a seat while you wait." And with that mom practically ran off to the kitchen. Adrien walked over and sat on the couch my parents once occupied, taking out his phone to do whatever. I then decided it was time to eat something and got up to go to the kitchen, but as I was about to cross the threshold, Adrien asked a question that made my stomach dip.

I froze on the spot. Why would he ask me that? I tried looking back to find a legitimate reason for his question but with every attempt my mind came back blank. So I went with the only option left.

"Why would you ask me that?" He turned on the sofa, swinging his arm over the back.

"Well, it would be easier to sort through your clothes while you eat, so we can head out as soon as you're done," he said, smiling, flashing a dimple on his left cheek and blinding the sun with his teeth. I was dumbstruck. Damn, this guy was good-looking and from the looks of it, he knew and had no problem using it.

"Where...never mind," I was about to ask where we were going to buy clothes but realized how dumb it was when my brain started to work again.

He chuckled, and my entire chest shut down for a couple seconds. I need to get away from this guy.

"Um... My room is at the end of the hall and my closet is the door on the right," when I finished answering his question, I turned to the kitchen to enjoy stuffing my face.

"Oh and by the way," I poked my head back into the living room as he pushed himself off the couch," it's been a week since my last clean. Don't judge me."

He smiled and headed to my room while I went to the kitchen.

After eating, I joined Adrien in my room, which he cleaned.

Okay then.

There were eight suitcases on my bed, four comfortably stuffed with all my sneakers.

"How exactly did you fit eighty-six pairs of sneakers in just four suitcases?" He jumped a little and turned to me with a large, gray pull over hoody he was about to fold.

"Well it's quite easy, you just need to work with the contours of each shoe," he said, gesturing towards the bags with the shoes and smiling like an innocent child.

Contour my ass. It took me three suitcases to transport twenty last time I traveled and even then I almost broke the zipper for each of them.

"Why did you pack all my sneakers anyway?" I asked as he stuffed the hoody into the side of a seventh suitcase containing all me sweaters. I'm gonna need one of those too if I'm going on the road, but I guess I could find something in the closet without disturbing his work. I looked across the bags and then into my closet and there was a noticeable space in it. How did he get so many clothes into just three bags?

He zipped the seventh bag then threw the eighth one open and headed towards the closet.

"Um Adrien," I called to him as he was somewhere in the closet digging through my clothes.

"Hmm."

"If you stuff all my suitcases, where will the shopping go?"

"We will buy suitcases for them and for the rest of this."

"Dude, I don't have enough money to buy so many suitcases and go shopping. Besides, why do you want to take all my clothes? Isn't the UK like cold year round or something?"

He stepped out the closet holding four pairs of jeans and eight hoodies. He looked at me with a subtly irritated face while some of his hair cover his right eye.

Oops, too close to home?

"Well it's not like you have summer wear in here now do you, and who told you, you're paying for anything," he said jerking the hair out of his eye before setting to work folding the clothes. He was right though, I don't have summer clothes well none that I go outside in, anyway. I'm a houseperson I like indoors. Indoors good, outdoors bad. Besides winter is my season of choice. All the snow and the cold and the ice and the cold and the snow too. Winter was the best.

Anyway, I stopped fan-girling over winter and walked around the bed stepping into my closet to get something to wear, seeing we were going on the road. I picked out a pair of khaki colour cargo pants, a long sleeved black turtle neck, some combat boots and a khaki coloured denim sweater with a hood. Yep, I'm all set.

We spent the next three days buying a bunch of stuff constantly unpacking bags to pack suitcases. I tried helping Adrien, so he wouldn't think I was a lazy ass, but, each time he would end up shooing me away, because I was using too much space for too little clothes, so I resorted to watching him do it instead.

At the end of those three days Adrien told me he would be picking me up at nine the next morning for our flight, told me to take the rest of the day to be with my family.

The next day Adrien came as promised and that's when the cold realization finally sunk in. I was leaving my family, my home I was leaving all that I knew, and the tears wouldn't stop flowing.

By the time we got to the airport my bawling ass had already gone through half of a box of tissues and stained my dad's chest and my mother and brother's shoulders with tears. I really going to miss them but, we made a plan that we would call each other as often as we could and that gave me a bit of reconciliation.

When we reached the airport we got assistance with taking out the bags and I finally took in how many of them were there. I have twenty-eight and Adrien had two not counting carry-ons.

When we got inside, we didn't sit around like everyone else. Adrien led us straight through a hallway leading to the tarmac.

"Um Adrien, where are we going?" I asked glancing around nervously. There wasn't anyone around, and we didn't even follow the usual protocol.

"The school owns its own jet," he said turning to walk backwards, smiling at me.

Over the pass few days I have come to realize Adrien isn't as scary as he sometimes looks, he's mostly an overgrown child. He's in love with cotton candy and stuffies but deathly afraid of bugs. One day he saw a ladybug on my shoulder and he literally freaked out, almost decapitating me with a newspaper.

We walked awhile until we came to a large glass door. Five people were standing between us and the door. Two men and three women.

One of the men and a woman were wearing pilot uniforms while the rest were wearing air host uniforms. So this is our flight party.

"Mr. Valentine, Mr. Taylor and family," the male pilot said in an almost unnoticeable Russian accent. Adrien nodded at him and turned to face my family and I.

I guess this is where we say goodbye.

I looked each of them in the eye, my brother, my mom and my dad, the three people who would love me my entire life. Now I'm saying goodbye. The thought made me sad but also happy in a way.

"I love you lunkheads, you know that right," I mumbled, tears dripping on my face again.

They all chuckled then stepped forward, pulling me into a very tight and appreciated death hug.

"We love you too."