TEMERITY | H.S.

1 - BRING IT ON HOME

"Bundle up and get your shovels out. This next week there are expected flurries all across western Washington and Oregon, flying in from the east, predicting four to five inches. It looks like we're in for a fun week. Better get your Christmas shopping done now..."

The sigh that Vega let out was a long one, loud enough to grab the attention of the stranger sitting next to her at her gate and dramatic enough to receive a dirty look from the one across from her. It never snowed in December in the Pacific Northwest, and Vega knew that. The eighteen years she spent in the state, subconsciously studying its weathering habits, was enough proof to defend the sound she made. It snowed in February. There would be a few more forecasts for flurries between now and the new year, and maybe even some more in January, but she knew to only believe them the second the calendar read February.

It happened every year, the prospect of a small storm for once in the second month of the year, but earning an eight-day-long snow-in, where the only people who even tried to drive to a place outside of their homes were the ones who had less than any clue how to maneuver any vehicle in the snow. You would think with all the rain they got, the change in temperature of the moisture falling from the sky wouldn't change the skillsets of the citizens, but you'd be wrong.

"It's not gonna snow," was all Vega said to both parties whose eyes were avoiding the sight of her ever since she dared to match their judging eye contact. She removed her attention from the subtitles on the flatscreen hanging on the wall across from her at her gate. This was why she never watched the news. It always just made her angry. They were never right.

Maybe her exasperation over the weather report was misplaced, and she was adult enough to recognize it. She walked into the airport in this mood and, unfortunately for the poor weatherman, was ready to unleash that irritation onto anyone.

The thought of the place she was headed the second her plane landed was the thing pulling her mood down into the depths, completely bypassing distaste and falling into rancor. The home she left nearly two years ago now was a place she never wanted to go back to. When she left, she was sure to cut all of the ties she didn't want dragging behind her getaway car like cans and string hanging onto a back windshield that read "just married." However, she wasn't an excited newlywed on her way to get banged to the end of the Earth on her honeymoon. She was a fed-up eighteen-year-old separating herself from the very thing that ruined the first two decades of her obscenely long existence on this planet.

Her family.

Her parents mainly, seeing as the people whose ties she decided to carry in her pocket when she migrated south to the lovely state of Arizona, were most of her siblings, who were all regrettably still stuck under the ways of their unrelenting creators. That was truly all they were. The title parent was simply inappropriate and disproportionate to the childhoods occurring under their roof. Or rather, lack thereof.

"Flight 424 to SEATAC is now boarding. Can I have all early boarding passengers please make their way to Gate L9, please?"

Vega's patience was tested as she waited for her boarding group to be called, seeing as she had already done this once today with her first flight out of the Phoenix airport. That flight took her here, to Portland, where she'd eventually make it to Seattle.

Ultimately, when group B was called, she stood from her chair in the emptying gate seating and hooked her pointer fingers into the belt loops of her blue jeans to pull them up. She knew her mother would hate them, and she was prepared for the onslaught of passive-aggressive questions about her choice of clothing.

Even on her deathbed, she did not doubt that woman would be incessantly vulgar.

Vega did her best to wipe her sour mood when she greeted the nice woman scanning tickets at the door. If there was one thing she learned in her life, it sure as hell was manners.