Winter Solstice

December 1st - Aspen

Ah, it was finally December. Isn't December just the best month of the year? I mean it has all the plus points, Christmas, snow, Christmas... At least that was what Aspen Xang thought. Kinda like how Belly from The summer I turned pretty's life was measured in summers, hers was in Winters. I mean besides the cold weather, there are NO downsides to Winter.

Anyway, It was December 1st and Aspen was in her bedroom watching HIMYM. It was a close tie between HIMYM and Friends, but, she eventually chose HIMYM. She was on season 9, her personal favorite season (except for the ending of course) mainly because of Tracy. She was just in the middle of an episode when,

'Aspen! I'm home!' called her mom (Lucy) who had just arrived back from the store downstairs.

'Hi mom, I'm upstairs!' Aspen yelled back.

Aspen and her mom had a, complicated relationship. Her mom worked as a local lawyer for small cases and worked almost 100 hours per week, 20 hours per day. Because of this, she was almost never around and when she was, she was in a bad mood. This was because she never wanted to be a Lawyer, but her parents made her become one after she got impregnated with Aspen at 19 and said that she needed to be able to take care of her child, and that she needed to become a Lawyer to do that.

'So how was school?'

'Pretty good, I mean, I learned a new form of camera work, so that's that.'

Aspen went to NYU Tisch for film. as she wanted to become either an Editor or Cinematographer. Lucy was always envious that her daughter was able to follow her dreams the way that was never able to go after hers, even though she was happy for her, there was always some envy there. She was lying on her couch in her room when Lucy walked in.

'Hey, so uh, I was thinking of going over to Laurel's later on in the evening, so just confirming that you are not staying here for the night, right?'

'Nope, not at all.'

'Alright! Well, I have to go over some reports so there's pasta downstairs just , so, tell me when you go.'

'Okay.'

Lucy left the room and Aspen paused the tv and got up. She looked outside and saw that it was snowing. She jumped excitedly and quickly got out her phone to take a picture to send to her friend back in London whom she had met during an international internship, exchange program kinda thing. She opened up the phone and just as she was quickly snapping the picture, she got a notification, she was gonna push it up and brush it off, but, then she noticed who it was. Noora from the study group!

Shit! Aspen thought to herself. How could she be SO stupid??!! She had a short film project due in 3 days and they hadn't even gotten halfway done filming! It was a queer short film filmed in New York, they had lowkey copied it a bit but not too much from this other short film called Free Rein by CJ Wade. They needed it to be at least 8 minutes for their story and they were not even 5 minutes into filming. 

Aspen quickly hopped off the bed and trapped her phone and her bag and turned off the tv. She rushed downstairs and put on her coat, beanie and shoes. 

'Mom I gotta rush okay!!'

'Okay sweetheart!'

She then realized that she needed her headphones or earphones, she lost her headphones on campus, (although she was positive that someone stole them) and she quickly ran back up and back down again before leaving through the door. 

Aspen rushed through the streets of New York City in the winter, which is one of the most brutal and beautiful experiences you would ever experience in your life. She was playing Holy Ground by Taylor Swift, her favorite song by her to calm her down and RAN over to her building on 721 Broadway. She felt the cold winter air on her face and she was freezing but it felt so good that she didn't care. She finally reached and zoomed up to the room where her study group was.