You Can Run To Me

Fourteen

The airport was airy. Too airy. The air-con was blowing a freezing-cold gale across Nat's face and straight through her thick wooly jumper. She looked around shiftily, then slipped her knitted gloves back on in an attempt to warm them up a little. Luckily, no one seemed to notice. She considered putting her hat on too, but decided that that would definitely get noticed. Why did they have the air-con on in winter anyway, for God's sake? Natalie breathed out and watched, incredulous, as her breath billowed palely in the frigid air.

It was still a magnificent winter wonderland outside and, her parents being the sometimes-we're-ridiculously-early-sometimes-we're-ridiculously-late sort (thanks, perhaps, to the combination of her father's Birman lateness and her mother's Collin's earliness), Natalie had been roused at some ungodly hour that morning to start out on the short journey to the city. Admittedly, the snow did slow them down to a crawl for the majority of their pilgrimage, but as far as Nat could tell, that was because they were out too early, meaning the snow plows hadn't done the rounds quite yet.

As it was, they had narrowly arrived on time, only to discover that they were the first. Even the professors that were going to accompany them were yet to be seen. Natalie glanced at her watch. She instantly swiveled to glare at her parents.

"We're almost an entire hour early!"

Her mom smiled benignly. "At least we aren't late."

Natalie struggled to find words to express her annoyance, but she was too annoyed to think of anything quite sharp enough to satisfy her. To make up for it, she glared impressively at her parents and flounced over to the waiting area, where she sat, still glaring at them with an impressive show of stamina. Not at all perturbed by this, her parents sat cozily on either side, much to Nat's exasperation.

After a while, Natalie's anger fizzled out just enough for her discomfort to overpower her pride. It really was unreasonably cold in the lounge, and even with the gloves on, Natalie knew she was simply too cold to sit still for an entire hour. But where to go? The duty free shops, she thought suddenly. It was either that, or demand that someone turn the heating on, and Nat didn't think they would. They all seemed perfectly happy in their little booths which probably had their own little heaters in.

Natalie had spent the past few minutes sketching the closest one as a rather believable demon, complete with horns, a pitchfork in one hand along with a scythe to fill the other and, most amusingly, a rat's tail, which didn't really fit with the rest, but Nat liked it. She was sorely tempted to go up to the lady and show it to her, but managed to dissuade herself, not wanting to get kicked out of there.

Nat resisted the urge to jog as she went into the closest store, telling herself that walking would keep herself quite warm enough. It didn't. However, though her teeth chattered all the way across the cavernous hall, she found herself buffeted by a pleasant spray of toasty-warm air when she crossed the threshold of a swanky-looking Barnes & Noble. She smiled in relief as the warmth spread throughout her chilled limbs. This was almost as good as a nice frothy hot chocolate.

And what would be in the corner of the book store but the very thing she wanted most: a café. It was a tiny little thing, and probably not as good as the mainstream Starbucks she had seen earlier, but she was pretty sure this was the only café in the airport where she could be warm inside and out. She ordered herself a hot chocolate with all the trimmings, and took a seat near to one of the shelves. Surely they couldn't expect customers not to test out the books while they were there? I'll just have a quick read, thought Nat as she picked a nice-looking paperback with a smooth matt cover off the shelf, to see if I like it.

It was there that her parents found her, quite concerned and red-faced while their daughter was quite blissfully unaware of anything but the little world on her lap. It had been a while since she had read a good book - and it was good – and she'd forgotten how nice it was to lose yourself into the story. Far more recently, though, she'd forgotten to tell her parents where she was going... and she'd forgotten to check her phone. It had gone off plenty of times, but she was too absorbed to notice even the disapproving looks of the young cashier. It took her dad shaking her shoulder quite vigorously to rouse her.