Snow Kisses

Day 1 Part 1

Day 1:

Today is the day.

The day that I had been preparing for my whole life. Or, well, the last three months that I've know about it at least.

Today was the day I was leaving dreary old Florida, where you could wear booty shorts on Christmas, and where that little thing called snow, is a myth.

Today was the day that I was packing up and heading to Maine for two weeks with my older sister and her nicotine addicted best friend.

Today was the day that I would be one step closer to crossing one more item off my high school bucket list.

Today's the day. The sun is shining, or at least, it would be, except it's four o'clock in the morning, and the only thingsthat are shining are the head lights from my sister's tiny little sports car as it idled, waiting for the three of us to somehow fit two weeks worth of luggage, and three not so tiny girls, underneath it's rag top.

I stood back and watched Claire, my vertically challenged older sister, and Candy, her slightly over weight, nicotine addicted best friend, as they tried to fit the three over sized duffel bags inside of the two foot by four foot space that served as the trunk for this clown car. Don't get me wrong, I love this little sports car, but I'm pretty sure it would have been smarter to take my old Ford truck, which has an extra long bed, so that we could get all our luggage and more in it, while still giving me leg room. Since I was the smallest and youngest of the three of us, I was forced to indure most of this trip in the back seat.

But since I wasn't the one paying for gas, or at least, according to Claire, I didn't get to pick the car. And that was how I ended up sitting in the back seat, smoothered between the sub-woofer and the cooler full of snacks. This was a task I thought impossible., but with the help of Candy pushing my size eight butt, and Claire pulling everything that had been set in the backseat towards her, I managed to make it, even though the cooler was stabbing me in the butt cheek.

Now that the fun part was over, the hardest task was at hand: figuring out what to listen to. Even though I had created several different mix tapes, with all songs approved by my companions, they started arguing over which one was first, completely ignoring the fact that I had numbered them with a large, black Sharpie, putting the more upbeat, wake me up songs at the beginning.

I rolled my eyes and sat back in the tiny space that I had been given, wishing I could pick the music instead, but because they didn't trust my music taste, I wasn't allowed to change the radio until it was my turn to drive. That, of course, wouldn't be until South Carolina. By then, Claire would be asleep and Candy would be listening to her iPod, which had a way better battery life than my crappy smart phone, which lost it's battery like a plane that lost its wing loses altitude.

Finally I got tired of their endless banter, and the fact that they were delaying our journey, so I snatched the CD labeled Road Trip #1 and slipped it into the CD player. I sighed as the sounds of Reggeaton music flowed out of the speakers that laid against my back. Sadly, I wasn't able to put any slow songs on this CD, since I didn't want to have Claire fall asleep at the wheel and kill us all.

As the bass bumped against me, my head lulled back, and the fact that I only got three hours of sleep last night finally got to me. I let my heavy lids close shut and sleep washed over my body like the waves on a shore.

I didn't wake up until we got to the rest stop on I-95 near the border of Florida and Georgia. By then, the coffee that my dad had forced into me so that I would be awake and be civil enough to help load the car was starting to let it's presence be known, and so I made my way to the rest stop bathrooms with Candy and Claire in tow. The chilling north Florida wind was blowing all around me, making my dirty blonde, sitck straight hair swirl around me. So I pulled the hood of my jacket up to protect my face, and continued my trek to the bathroom.

“Holy fudge nuggets, its cold,” Candy cried as we shuffled into the restroom, huddling together to keep each other warm. The heater did little to push back the cold that made it's way under the door. This made my trip to the bathroom very short.

“If you think it's cold now, just wait till we get to Maine. Buck says its gotten below zero up there,” Claire said from the stall next to me.

I shuddered at the thought as I finished up and washed my hands. I knew I was going to freeze to death, but it was worth it. I wouldn't let my poor circulation get in the ways of achieving my goals. Candy came out of the stale behind me, holding her e-cigarette out to me, while trying to push her short chestnut hair back out of her face.

“Want some?” she asked as she passed it over to me, so that I could hold it for her while she washed her hands.

“What flavor is it?” I asked as I looked at the blue rod full of liquid nicotine. My ex-boyfriend would have frowned at me for even thinking about taking a drag of it. But since I broke up with the cling on, and he couldn't cling to me anymore, I didn't care.

“Mango.”

I shrugged my shoulders and took a pull from it, letting the artificial mango flavor fill my mouth and sting the back of my throat. Finally I let it out in one large puff, and watched as the cloud of water vapor dissipated right in front of me.

Claire came waddling out of the stall, took one look at me, and shook her head. “Now don't go getting sick on me, okay?” she said as she washed her hands.

Candy and I chuckled as we remembered my first go round with one of these things. Candy had had the concentration on high, and I took two pulls from it, and became extremely sick that night. Since then, I've only been allowed one, low concentration pull, and that was all I needed. I didn't do it because I was addicted. Heck, I hadn't had a pull in about two weeks. I just did it to calm my nerves, and the girls knew that.

“So, who do you have in mind?” Candy inquired as I squeezed into the back seat, and Claire took her spot as shot gun.

I laid my head back onto the hard surface above the seat, thinking about it. Did I really know who I wanted? Not really.

“Nope, so long as he's hot,” I told her as she started up the car and pulled out onto the highway, bringing me closer and closer to my goal.

“Mind explaining your definition of hot?” Claire asked rhetorically as she fiddled with the sound system, making the bass lower and changing a few other settings.

I chuckled under my breath. Claire was dating a guy two years younger than her, two feet taller than her, and wasn't at all the type of guy I would go for.

In my opinion, the guy needs to be fit. Lately, I've been attracted to the baseball guys, with their smooth, slender muscles and tall build. I knew I wouldn't find many tan guys in Maine, so I would settle with tanner than me, which wasn't hard. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone from Florida is tan. Due to my Irish and Scottish heritage, I tended not to tan, and what little tan I did get was gone in two weeks. So even though I was tan at the end of the summer, after endless hours of laying out in the sweltering Florida sun, my tan was now gone.

“Hot,” was all I said as I leaned back and let myself dream of my first kiss in over two years.

Yes, that was my goal. I planned on working on my flirting skills, and utilizing the supposed abundance of mistletoe that Maine had, just so that I could say that I, Kara Studwick, planned to kiss a total strange up in Maine. And hopefully in the snow.