BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge

[sciclone]

So ... this was the East coast, huh?

Cosima wasn't sure what she had expected to see, and the bland nothing of an airport lounge wasn't giving her much of an impression of her new home yet. She felt a sudden twist of worry mixed with homesickness. Maybe she shouldn't have obeyed the impulsiveness that had led her to transfer to some tiny boarding school thousands of miles from home. Not that San Francisco was doing anything great for her lately, but at least she knew people there.

If she looked at it logically, she knew not to let her nerves wreck the experience. School would be fine, and if it wasn't, she could go home at the end of the summer -- or even sooner if she wanted. But logic wasn't the easiest thing to have when you were 16 and alone in a strange airport.

She lounged in a hard airport chair, earbuds in, and poked at her phone until she found a new science podcast to listen to. It was comforting.

Comments

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[sciclone]

"That's us," Cosima said, smiling up at him and feeling more at ease. This guy seemed like a familiar type from back home. (Her gaydar was a work in progress, but her stoner-dar didn't lie.) "Hey, I'm Cosima."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[traded4an-oz.livejournal.com]

"Jesse," he said, awkwardly kind of shifting his bag and giving a little wave. "You're...going to this school, too? Seriously? You're not fucking with me?"

Look, dude, she had dreadlocks. Girls with dreadlocks generally didn't go to Have No Fun Academy. (He hadn't even thought there would be females of the species there, honestly.)

Either there was a loophole, ooooooor his folks had sent him to a completely different school than what they'd thought.

He wasn't going to get his hopes up, but...okay. This wasn't the worst, so far.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[sciclone]

"Dude, I don't even know you," Cosima pointed out. "Why would I fuck with you?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[traded4an-oz.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Jesse said honestly, actually smiling a little, "but you seem very chill, and I was totally expecting to be greeted by like, a big scary dude with a buzzcut. So this is a nice surprise. I just didn't want to get too happy about it if someone was gonna come along and tell me to drop and give him fifty, y'know?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[sciclone]

"Oh my god, is this supposed to be military school?" Cosima asked, looking properly appalled at the thought. "Because the website I saw was all about independent study, learning at your own pace, supporting unique students, blah blah blah. I can't do the drop and give me 50 thing."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[traded4an-oz.livejournal.com]

"Well, my parents definitely thought they were sending me to military school," Jesse told her, smiling a little wider. "But, um, I'm thinking more and more by the minute that they got confused about what kind of school this really is. Not that I'm complaining."

He held his hands up, looking around -- maybe he was on a hidden camera show. "Not complaining at all."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[sciclone]

"Yeah, maybe don't tell them," Cosima decided, smiling back. "What they don't know won't hurt them, right? And nobody deserves military school."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[traded4an-oz.livejournal.com]

"You. I like how you think," Jesse said, pointing at her. "I definitely don't deserve military school. Cosima, right? Am I saying it right?"

He was. He'd just never met anyone named Cosima before.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[sciclone]

"You got it," Cosima nodded. "It's Italian. Not that my parents are, they just decided to be different."

She leaned forward in her seat. "Want to talk about why the military school thing came up? Or is that way too personal?"

It probably was, but she was curious.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[traded4an-oz.livejournal.com]

"Not doing so great with the regular school thing," Jesse explained, shrugging as he took a seat. "And they're sick of getting calls from the principal, you know? They figure it's easier just to export the bad kid and get a good one back, I think."

If he sounded a little bitter -- well, finding out that he wasn't going to military school after all wasn't quite enough to take the sting out of why he was being sent.