Peppermint Omega

6

I grumbled under my breath feeling my frustration building greatly as I sat in traffic inching my way along on the interstate. 'Evie says, "I'll owe you big, big time, Quinny. Name it",' I repeated in a mock high pitched voice as I narrowed my eyes in the rearview mirror.

'Pffftt, I should have negotiated a "pain and suffering " clause to her owing me,' I snorted and threw a nice gesture to a small sporty coupe cutting me off in an already packed lane. The horn tooted in time to bleep myself from hearing my own slew of curses.

I knew it did nothing to blow up so fiercely, but it did feel good to let off the jar top of negative emotions. Even things that needed to ferment needed to be burped once and a while - solid advice from Grandmother. I giggle-snorted replaying my previous actions of being a complete ass to a stranger. Normally, things like that didn't bother me. But I was still mad that she waited until the last minute..

I picked up another peppermint and shoved it into my mouth, pulling the plastic between my teeth to leave the candy behind. It felt good, like a small comforting hug. My grandmother always had the candies on her and would give them to me when I was feeling down or sick or really anything. They were a tiny cure all, she would say. It made me smile.

But anxiety ate at my belly. I didn't like meeting new people, especially alone. I knew nothing about this person, though Evie showed me a picture of him and sent my picture to him. Sure, he did need to know who he was looking for. Jokingly I told her to tell him to look for a potato in a brown haired wig, but the self-deprecation didn't fly with her.

At least the drive wasn't a total bust. I could listen to NyonVib3n without judgement. They were a girl group from the UK, very much giving Spice Girl vibes, but there were only 3 members.

'Oohh yeeeahhh,' I sang with Pyer. She was a rapper and back up vocalist. I liked her voice best. It had a raspy quality to it. 'On yaaah kneees.. Beggin' me pleaaaase.. You're just a dirty ohhh-meyyygaa.'

Thankfully, Evie's car windows were tinted so I only had to worry about the driver of the car ahead of me watching, but I highly doubted that they were. It made my nerves calm with a false sense of security that no one could see me, but shadows could be seen - maybe?

My playlist was nearly six hours long, and I had gotten through quite a bit of it before I parked at short term. Pulling up my phone, I eyed his picture trying to memorize his features so I wouldn't miss him at the luggage corral. Surprisingly, there was a lot of bodies in the airport. It was my first time coming to one - I didn't tell Evie that since she looked so desperate to find someone to help out.

I looked at her other texts about his flight, so I could get to the right corral. The track started to move as soon as I got there. I waited against a metal support beam, scanning the luggage that came around, imagining different scenarios in my head. Some of those were full of drugs and stacks of cash [unlikely] and others were full of sex toys. I giggle-snorted, looking around embarrassed. No one was paying attention to me, but that didn't stop me from turning completely red.

Soon more people started to surround the corral and grab their baggage. I swept across the area again, paranoia building up. Did I miss him?

Impossible. I shook my head. I was here the whole time, watching. Pulling my phone back out, I texted Evie, asking her for her brother's phone number so I could text him. She didn't reply me quickly like she normally did.

'Shit,' I muttered, 'the date..'

Keeping my head down, out of habit, I moved from the support post taking a few steps toward the start of the security gate. Next to them was the sign listing all the flights. I wanted to make sure that I was at the correct luggage corral. My stomach was in knots. Sweat began to swamp my armpits.