Not a Fan (Wilbur Soot)

First Day

"Yeah, mom. I'm just about there. Yes, I'll call you back when I finish unpacking." Aurora answered, doing her best to get off the phone with her mom. She had only been off the plane for three hours and her mom had already found four excuses to call her.  

"Sorry about that." Aurora spoke up to the taxi driver from the backseat once her mom finally let her hang up. 

"Not a problem, my mom is the same way." He answered, not averting his eyes from the road. His voice was a yellowish brown, reminding her of toffee.

Aurora appreciated that the taxi driver was fairly reserved. He hadn't asked about her number of suitcases, what she was doing in the UK, or why she had been on the phone with her mom several times already on their short trip. 

She rested her head against the window, it's cool and slightly wet glass felt wonderful against her flushed skin. The taxi driver had the heat turned up far too high but she didn't want to request he lower it. 

The sky was grey and dreary, just how she remembered from her last trip to the UK. Brighton was different though, as the city ran right along the sea. The clouds melted into the water's horizon, making it nearly impossible to determine where one ended and the other began. The rain drops slowly rolling down the car window didn't help much either. 

"This the place?" The taxi driver asked, looking over his seat as he pulled off the road. 

"I hope so." Aurora mumbled, unsure as she examined the building. The photos online of her apartment must've been taken during the one sunny day a year. Every building looked fairly similar in weather like this in combination with her general lack of knowledge of English architecture. 

"Oh, you don't have to do that." Aurora rushed out of the car as the driver was already beginning to pull her bags out of the trunk. 

"Not a problem." He said flatly, setting her bags on the wet side walk. She looked down at the bags, then back over to her new home. Her umbrella did a poor job at protecting her from the rain, gusts of wind soaking her sides. 

"Thanks, sir." She said quietly, pulling the last suitcase inside the building's vestibule. He gave a simple nod as a response, walking quickly though the rain back to his taxi. 

The lobby was quite modest, but still definitely better than the one from her dorm building the last time she stayed in Brighton. A younger woman with headphones in sat behind the front desk, not offering more than a quick glance, much more interested in her phone. 

"Hi, I'm here to pick up my keys? For apartment 606B?" Aurora asked quietly, hoping the volume of the desk attendant's headphones wasn't too loud. 

"Aurora Jennings?" The woman asked, looking over to a stack of papers on the desk. Clouds of light blue floated over her words 

"That's me." Aurora answered, relief flooding her senses as she was now sure she was in the right building. "Call me Rori." She said with a smile, fond of the shade of blue associated with her voice. 

"Yeah.. Here are the keys, elevator is on the left." She answered, uninterested, looking back to her phone as she slid the keys through the small slot. 

"Thanks." Aurora's words were meek. The only two people she had met weren't the friendliest. When she studied abroad here in college, there was no issue making friends. That was a large reason why she moved here in the first place. One part quarter life crisis, the other desperate for a fresh start. 

She barely managed to squeeze into the rather small elevator with all her luggage, pinned against the wall slightly as the elevator ascended to sixth floor.