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AFTER FINDING OUT EXACTLY where her father lived- with yet again the help of her friend - she immediately booked a plane ticket to London. It was quite cheap because all the available seats were in the back of the plane, next to the toilets.
Rya couldn't believe that she was actually going to meet her father.
As a kid, on every single birthday, she used to close her eyes and wish really hard for her father to come to back to them, before blowing ferociously on the candles adorning her birthday cake.
Each year, it was the same thing, she kept wishing and wishing, until one day it clicked in her mind- she realized that it was futile wishing for something that unimaginable. The pain she felt each time after her birthday, when she would wake up and see that her father wasn't there got easier through the years and soon enough she only felt a slight pinch to her heart— a bearable type of pain.
And now, the fact that her childhood wish was going to come true, scared her to death. She didn't know if he even wanted to see her, much less let her live with him. But she had no other choice.
Her mother had left behind a quite generous sum of five thousand dollars, and Rya had practically used all of it to find her father. From hiring a professional hacker that turned out to be a year older than her, to all the comfort food and all of the necessities she had to buy through the months, the money went away quite fast.
She had been put in foster care because her mother had removed her father's name from her birth certificate– making it seem like she didn't have one.
Rya had also refused to live with one of her aunts or uncles under the pretense that she did not want to be adopted. The court validated her wants because she had just lost her mother and they thought it would only be temporary. So, with the limited information she had on him from her mother's old journal, it was truly amazing that they managed to find him.
With all of the stress and anxiety in her body, Rya could not fall asleep. She had tossed and turned for two whole hours, covered in sweat because of the unbearable heat radiating off of her duvet, before finally abandoning and occupied herself with some research on her laptop.
"Work till you drop" was her motto.
When the big hand struck twelve and the smaller one four, on her old clock, she had started to feel less restless, Rya went over to her bed, layed down on the cheap covers of the singleton with the squeaky mattress, and, like a light switched off, she fell asleep.
After what felt like milliseconds later for Rya, the alarm that she had set in advance was blaring into the empty room, waking her up. She groaned into her pillow, clearly too tired to get out of the little bubble she had created around herself with her covers. She had merely slept for four hours though those hours felt like seconds to her body.
Despite her exhausted state, Rya got up from her bed; she fought through it, far too nervous to let her laziness take over.
It was eight in the morning which meant that her flight was in three hours. It gave her plenty of time to shove all her belongings into one suitcase. She didn't have much to start with as Rya wasn't the type of person to ask for much, hence her rather low amount of clothes, they were all she needed- nothing too much and nothing too less.
She spent a whole hour maniacally folding her clothes into the suitcase, making sure they would all fit in there. Stumbling back to her closet after tripping over a box, she saw a small necklace on the top of the first shelf, immediately recognizing it, she furrowed her brows in confusion. However, not wanting to stir up memories she didn't want to get into at the moment, she shoved it into the back pocket of her jeans.
In November 2019, Rya and her mom had moved to america, seeking for a better life than the one their country could give them. Also, they were funded by their government, to go to america and get treatment for the sake of her mother because their country could not offer them the proper medical care that they needed. Sadly, even in America, there was nothing they could do for her. Mira had been brought to her demise only a couple months later.
Rya had been taken into foster care after that, she lived in a fairly big place that she didn't call home, what with the house always in a mess because of all the little kid's toys and the messy teenagers.
But now she was finally going to escape with the help of her friend-Jonathan–all the way to the city of London. Her entire plan appeared to be crazy, even to her ears, but taking that risk prevented the eventual possibility of having to go back to her home country. Rya couldn't go back there, it was the home of false dreams and missed opportunities. A place where you take a chance for yourself and it goes and bites you in the ass.
Moments later, while her thoughts were circling around the past, Jonathan knocked on her closed bedroom door, making himself known by the strange knock combination they had put into place for this occasion.
The guy was the type to detest any human being that came across him, but had surprisingly taken quite a liking to Rya, just as a brother would with his sister. Maybe it was because she was like him in a way; Extremely smart, antisocial and an avid hater of human beings.
"Hey Rya." He said and adjusted his black framed glasses on his nose.
The sixteen year old looked up from her phone that she had pulled out to review the details of her flight and smiled softly at him.
" Hey Jon, you ready?"
He raised an eyebrow at her "I'm pretty sure I should be asking you that question but, yes, I'm ready as I'll ever be." Rya laughed a bit, glad she could take her mind off of what she was about to do for a moment.
She took her suitcase that was standing in her closet in case anyone happened to enter her room and transported it into the hall, right before the steps of the staircase. Luckily, they managed to take the suitcase all the way down without making any noise except from the little hits that the walls had to take. Nobody was awake, it was a saturday after all, therefore they didn't wake anybody up. Now, all they had to do was get into a taxi and go straight to the airport.
As soon as they crossed the threshold of the house and walked a bit to the main street, they came in contact with the yellow cabs that made their way along the busy streets of the city. Jonathan quickly whistled out for one and the duo got inside the car that smelled like cigarettes and stale popcorn. The horrible stench made Rya wrinkle her nose in disgust.
"So, what's your plan?" Jon asked her curiously, adjusting himself in his seat.
"I don't exactly know. I think I'm just going to rent a cheap motel room as soon as I land, stay there for the night and then go to his flat." She mumbled, wincing at her terrible plan.
Jonathan nodded and chuckled but didn't respond, amused by the girl sitting next to him.
The rest of the ride was spent in silence except for the soft music flowing around the car. Rya immediately recognized the song. "She" by winona oak, one of her favorites. She started silently lip syncing to the lyrics overflowing in the small space. It always calmed her, singing, and this small act of singing without any sound coming out was just as therapeutic as the actual action itself.
After a couple more agonizing minutes in the awfully kept cab, they soon arrived at the airport. The driver stopped right in front of the entry of the huge building, before getting out of the vehicule to help get her suitcase out of the trunk. She quickly grabbed all of her belongings before fishing out some money from her pockets to pay for the ride.
She gave the man the neatly folded pieces of paper that had so much value and his eyes immediately widened at the large sum she had given him, wanting her to take it back but she just shook her head, amicable telling him to keep it.
Jonathan had made his way next to her and was waiting patiently to say goodbye.
When she stepped in front of him, she engulfed him in a hug. They kept their brotherly embrace for a few seconds before it was made apparent by the clearing of a throat that she had to go inside.
"Bye Jon. I'll call you later, I swear." She mumbled under her breath so that her voice wouldn't crack. The last thing she wanted to do right now was cry.
"You better" He replied playfully, trying to make light of the situation.
They weren't going to see each other for a long time.
The security checks passed by fairly quickly and soon enough she finally found herself in the airplane, palms sweating and heart rate accelerated.
Rya absolutely hated planes.
She made sure to fall asleep as quickly as possible as to not let herself vomit all over her poor neighbor's lap.
And, after a flight of nearly seven hours that were spent sleeping, watching movies and listening to music, they had finally landed in the beautiful yet polluted city of London.
She stood in awe, in front of a busy street she had walked to after getting all her belongings, waiting for a taxi to appear. She shook herself out of her reverie as soon as the car was in front of her feet and rapidly stumbled into it as to not let anyone take her place.
"Can you get me to the nearest and cheapest hotel please?" She exhaled in a quick breath, Rya was really hoping they would be able to find one or else she didn't know where she could go for the night. Because she surely couldn't go to her father's flat that late at night; it would be rude.
"I'm fairly sure there is this hotel not far from here called 'Grande Hotel' if that's alright with you miss" He told her kindly, wondering why such a young girl was taking a cab all alone at night. The man had a strong accent which made Rya pause a bit, to discern what he had said to her. It would take her a bit of time to get used to all the accents she would hear, she reckoned.
"Yes that would be perfect. Thank you so much" She finally responded.
The whole ride there, the driver kept itching to ask the question that was on his mind but decided against it as that could be uncomfortable for her. He just hoped she wasn't in any sort of danger.
Just as he was about to open his mouth again to satisfy his incessant curiosity, he saw the big hotel sign at the end of the small street they were in and quickly shut it.
"Here we are Miss. That'll be twenty pounds"
She had exchanged all the money in dollars that she had for pounds at the airport just so that she could be able to pay for things here in this large City.
"Here, keep the change." She told him, though the change in question would be the eighty pounds left from the hundred pounds worth of little bills she had given him. A fairly large sum, but she was sure it would be put to good use by him.
He thanked her profusely, before speeding down the empty street to get to his next client. When she lost sight of the car, Rya turned her face to the hotel that looked quite old but still in good condition and walked in through the revolving doors.
It took her no less than twenty minutes to pay for a single room which she was sat in now, on the bed, staring up at the white ceiling with as many thoughts as the night before in her head.