Where the Hurricane Meets a Blizzard

Chapter 3

dedicated to my homegirl ivey for the super cute banner even though she mispelled "hurricane" i still love her anyway i guess

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               “If I offer to give you my allowance for a whole month, will you please give me enough money to fly home?” I try pleading with Ryan as we check into the ski resort (if you can even call such a small building that). The place is a miniature thing, probably about maybe a little more than half the size of an average ski resort.

               At the present, the three of us are located in a small Alaskan town named after some Eskimo who inhabited this place over a century ago. How do I know this? My history-loving idiot of a brother just had to have our ride stop at the welcome center in town to get a little history pamphlet that he could look over and take home as his version of a souvenir. While he was inside getting information in regards to where we’re staying and what fun activities there are to do, I was freezing my butt off inside of the small car that one of the workers at the resort had driven to pick us up. After my many complaints, the guy, probably in his late thirties or early forties, had sworn up and down that the heater was, in fact, turned on full blast.

               I’m still a little skeptical of how much truth there actually was in his words, but whatever.

               Once Ryan felt secure in his knowledge of the town and returned back to the car to be driven to the resort, a heavy silence had hung over the car. Ellie, who was shoved between Ryan and me in the backseat, had her headphones in her ears, her not-so-subtle way of saying that she didn’t want to talk to anyone. The driver kept insistently flipping the radio from one static-filled station to another before finally settling on one of the few working stations that happened to be playing some old folk song.

               It took a lot of self-restraint to keep from banging my head up against the frosted glass of the backseat window. No matter how long I had stared out the window at the passing scenery, my mind couldn’t seem to absorb the reality of our situation. I couldn’t help but think about how if Mom was here with us, things wouldn’t be nearly as bad. If there’s anything my mom is notorious for, it’s taking a seemingly rotten situation and turning it into something fun and memorable.

               Subconsciously, I fiddled with my gold charm bracelet, the metal chain links cold against my skin. When that failed to calm me, I finally took the pillow that had been resting on my lap and hugged it against my body, gently resting my head against the door to my side and staying in that position all the way until we reached the resort what felt like an eternity but was probably only several minutes later.

               “Opal, I am not giving you money to go back home,” Ryan says as the woman behind the desk in the main lobby hands him two keys. I let out an aggrieved sigh in exaggeration, turning away from the gray-haired lady behind the wooden desk and trailing my eyes around the main lobby of the ski resort.

               The walls consist of glazed wooden panels and the room contains a high ceiling, supported by large wooden logs for beams. The desk is located along the wall to the right of the entranceway and the lobby is split up into two sections, the main one where you first enter when coming in from outside that consists of a bunch of sagging, patched up couches and vending machines, and the smaller recreational one where there are a few foosball and Ping-Pong tables, along with a mini gift shop and convenience store. Hung up on a few of the walls are a diverse variety of very life-like animal heads that seem to be staring into my soul, silently haunting me for being a member of the species who had done this to them. I look away, unsettled by the piercing eyes of deceased Alaskan wildlife.