Beginning of the End

Ch. 3

I felt a hand shaking my shoulder and I swatted it away.

"Ten more minutes," I mumbled and tried to turn over. I say try because I couldn't. I was on an airplane. Yippee. I looked up to see a middle-aged flight attendant.

"Your father told me to wake you," she said, "It's time for lunch."

I groaned and sat up as best as I could.

What happened to Father waking me up? I seethed to myself. Funny, father felt more normal than dad.

I looked pointedly at him but he ignored me. There was a small cough from the flight attendant. She still hadn't moved.

"May I take your order for lunch young Miss?" She said politely. I looked at my Father again.

"Get something but not too expensive." He huffed. I made a face at him after he had gone back to his movie.

"May I recommend the spring salad? It's quite nice with a lemon poppyseed vinaigrette. There's a romaine and spinach mix along with coconut, apricots, radish, chickpeas, pecans, strawberries, blueberries, and a little bit of cracked pepper."

I nodded. "May I have that?" I asked, thinking of all the weight I'd gain from not running since I was told about the move.

And I'll probably still not run for a few weeks later until I settle in.

"Of course, I'll have that brought out to you shortly." She continued on her way and I watched her for a while as she took orders from other passengers.

I settled back into my seat and tried to relax. I ended up opening the blind to my face sized window and watching the clouds.

It was quite peaceful up here. It was as if there were no people in the air. The clouds looked like you could just walk right out onto them.

As I contemplated that idea, I noticed something on the ground. There was a bunch of shimmering light.

"Hey, Father?" I asked nervously, trying to see how it would sound if I called him that instead of 'dad'. I mean, it's not like there was a decent relationship between the two of us anyways.

"What?" He grunted.

"Do you see what I see?"

He looked out the window. "It's just the sun reflecting off of the plane and buildings." He said with a scowl, frustrated that I had disturbed his movie yet again.

I turned back to the window and watched the ground more. The shimmering had stopped so I assumed my father was right.

"Your salad, young Miss?"

I jumped and turned to see the flight attendant with a bowl in her hands.

After a few trial and errors, I finally brought down my tray that was attached to the seat back in front of me. God, this is so cumbersome.

She gently set the food down with a napkin and a fork with the grace of whatever animal was the graciest.

Not realizing how hungry I had been until I took the first bite, I devoured the whole salad within a few minutes It was exceptionally good. There was just enough balance of sweet and bitter. I eyed the dessert menu, completely forgetting about the weight I'd probably gain. Jenny would be irked and Kate would've laughed and bought me two of whatever it was I wanted to get.

"You don't need that." My dad hissed at me, ripping the menu out of my hands.

I'd be lying if I said that my eyes didn't watch as the menu left his hands and was given to the flight attendant. I must have gone back to sleep because I was woken up told it was time to get off the plane to switch to the one heading to California.

I stretched and yawned. After being handed my bag by an impatient giant, my vertically challenged self and my father exited the plane.

As we went through the terminals, I took pictures of almost everything, wanting to download them later on my blog. It was also a plus that it irritated my dad. He could be so uptight sometimes!

The layover time was an hour so Father and I had to sit next to each other in excruciating silence.

He tried to make small talk but I just blew him off.

In my defense, he was being a jerk. Telling me to do this and that and being rude and all.

As we boarded the plane, I was careful to not be too antsy, lest I bring down the wrath of Kahn.

The plane took off and landed with no problems. It was when we went to the car dealership that things became shaky. Literally. The ground started to shake. I screamed a little bit and soon felt myself falling.

"Great," I thought to myself as I hurtled through space, "even the earth hates me."

l coming to on the ground with a very cute boy kneeling over me. His dark hair was tinged with sweat and his chest was heaving steadily under a white Cotton shirt that did nothing to hide his beautiful abs. 

He helped me sit up while my father was a ways off on the phone. 

"He said it was really important." The boy said.

I sighed. "He always says that." 

I looked at the crack in the grounds. "How far did I fall?" I asked, pressing a hand to my throbbing head.

"Probably about 3 feet. You hit your head on a ledge which is probably what led you to survive. I don't think there's any damage but..."

 I interrupted him. "The man over there said that if I wasn't dead, I was fine and he had better things to spend money on then a perfectly healthy person." 

He looked slightly amused. "Yup, that just about sums it up." 

I sighed again. "Thanks for pulling me out," I said, unsure of what else to say in this kind of situation. 

"Ya, no problem. You're lucky I was here when I was. I just got off a plane from Texas. I'm Maverik, by the way." He said as I stood up. 

I held out a hand, "Aspen. Nice to meet you" we shook hands and then I was bombarded by licks from Tobby. I squatted down.

"Hey boy," I cooed, "it's alright." I laughed as he jumped on me and licked my face. "All right," I said, still laughing, "get off ya great lump." He rolled around playfully. 

"Where are you headed?" I asked Maverik.

"Solana Beach," he said. His voice was smooth and gentle."Why don't we give you a ride since that's where our house is." I jumped as I felt my father put his hand on my shoulder. I was not used to physical contact with him and it probably showed. 

After a few minutes and phone calls later, we all loaded into a ford truck and headed towards my new home. Yay.