On the Altar

Chapter 1

POV-Mystique, age 20

December 23

"Christy, where are you? Are you lost in your hometown airport? I've been waiting for hours!" I groan into my phone after my eyes grow tired of stretching wide open in the airport, looking out for her silhouette.

"Well, the plane got delayed due to heavy snowfall on your end. Not exactly my fault, is it?" she asks sarcastically.

"Where are you now, then?" I ask deftly.

"Meet me near the taxicabs, alright?" she says, exasperated, and hangs up.

It is hard when you have a best friend who is four years younger than you, had lived in California for the last year, not enjoying the beach, but in rehab, battling the monster trying to eat her life away. When she became clean after nearly a year, she stayed with my grandparents for a couple months, in vicinity of the Wine County, also known as the cellar of their house.

As she enjoys the year-round warmth of California, you are stuck in Massachusetts, studying for your degree in medicine at  Harvard Med. But right now, you are in your roots at New York City, at the end of December, standing in the airport, freezing your a*s off.

I look around the airport for a redheaded bombshell anyway, because if she reaches the exit before me, we're going to be running around in circles looking for each other, neither of us are patient. And then, I'm going to be late for my first ever learning session with an assigned, trained doctor. 

But all I see is a sight that chains my heart to this day- a young mother trying to console her crying baby. A tap on my shoulder knocks me out of my trance.

 I turn around and see Crystal Mason in all of her haphazard self, her hair pulled back from her face with the same hair tie she'd been using for years, wearing a worn-out Harry Potter shirt and jeans, feeling warm in one layer of clothes in the devastating cold of New York. She dropped her bags dramatically and hugged me, knocking the air out of my lungs

I missed her stupid self more than I will ever admit, so don't you go and tell her. 

She finally lets go of me, the cold air once again filling my lungs. "Lost in dreamworld, doc?" Christy asks, her sweet voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Just wondering of ways to keep warm, instead of creating a mini-bonfire from your clothes, which you should've packed last night instead of this morning, so that you could've caught the early-morning flight back." I pick up one of her bags and start walking to the exit. She follows me.

"Not all of us are night owls, Misty." 

"You're not even a morning person. You function best after noon."

"Well, in your defense, it is 1 pm."

"You wanna sleep at the apartment, or just catch the next flight to California?"

"Well, your mum's place has a heater, but the airport doesn't have you." She says tapping her chin. "Decisions, decisions."

I do not have time to bicker with her all day. I hail a cab, tell the driver my address and ask her, "You coming?"

"Sure, if you insist," she says and hops into the cab. "By the way, your mum told me to ask you to just accept the cheques, or she'll just keep troubling the bank people by depositing it in your account. And remember, even though she knows how to, she doesn't do the depositing online." 

"Well, I'll have an internship in a couple years' time, so maybe she will stop sending them."

"She's enjoying life in Santa Monica, but she's working at the pet store near the beach. I think her doctor called to check in and actually scolded her yesterday for being such a workaholic."

That seems plausible.