Umbrellas

☂ girls and mountains

                                                          ☂ • ☂ • ☂ 

             [ in which a character is forced to speak to someone they dislike ]

                                                          ☂ • ☂ • ☂ 

    HUDSON PARKS LIKES girls. He also likes mountains.

     That does not mean he likes them together, though.

     As a general sort of rule, he's learned the hard way that combinations, especially those involving two already decent things, suck. Girls, through his limited experience, are fully enjoyable. So are mountains, especially when they involve skiing and lodges and vacations.

     But together?

    It's like ketchup and ice cream.

     Ketchup and ice cream is thoroughly repulsing and cringeworthy and nauseating, like a rocky boat ride during a storm.

     Ketchup and ice cream is to be avoided at all costs.

     Ketchup and ice cream is, essentially, Aspen McKinley.

     Aspen McKinley.

    Even though he is rather fond of her namesakes, Hudson most definitely does not like her. The two little truths that he enjoys both girls and mountains are certainly not enough to weigh all the other nuisances.

     Nuisances. Plural. Many. 

     The list of Hudson's grievances are, without a doubt, very very very long, and it includes other topics such as: her ability to change the focus of a conversation from dentristry to werewolves, her tendency to talk about the fatality rate of toilet explosions, and the complete lack of either a vocal filter or a forethought. All small things which irk him, but not what truly makes him avoid her.

     Because of paramount importance, what he does not like about her is that she is unpredictable.

     Wild. Spontanteous. Erratic.

     Volatile, even.

     Hudson Parks likes lists, order, lines, and predictability.

     And Aspen?

     Aspen McKinley is anything but that.

     He's heard she can spout random facts about pineapples faster than he can run away from her, which, mind you, is very fast (and quite frankly, it horrifies him to even think of such things).

     So it is understandable that he feels marginally pissed when Aspen wakes him up at 6:30 in the morning—about an hour before he usually crawls out of bed—with a chipper smile on his front door step and a steaming tray of food in her hands.

     Usually his mom would answer the door, but she's currently a passed out lump on the couch reeking of sweat and illness courtesy of the flu, and his dad is probably twenty thousand miles in the sky right now on a business trip to Europe.

     So it's just him.

     Woe.

     "Hi!"

     Oh no, is the only thought that is running through his head. Small talk is usually fine, but it is far too early in the morning today. Would it seem to rude to pretend I never saw her and just close the door?