To fly or not to fly?

Augie fumbled nervously with the pack of Marlboro in his shirt pocket. When he finally managed to get his freezing and shaking fingers around the box, he paused, patting his pockets for his lighter. Finally he found it. Lighter in hand, he reached desperately for the last cigarette in the pack. His fingers fumbled and he dropped it in a puddle at his feet.
“FUCK,” he said loudly, attracting a dirty stare from a woman next to him. He bent to pick it up, but it was soggy and useless. He let it fall limply from his hand and looked around at the wet world beyond the  airport, not sure what else to do. He could go in, but that was the last thing he wanted to do just then.
Of course, he’d regretted his decision to fly almost as soon as he’d made it. He’s felt panicky and shaky and all around scared. First thing he’d done was place the tickets safely in his desk drawer. Second thing was trek down to Ray’s Liquor store to find himself a dealer. The fact that he hadn’t even begun to search for a good hookup until that day represented to him how much he really had regressed into this flabby mess since moving to the Castle Apartments. He’d lost his edge, become boring.
Now, standing under the airport awning watching the rain piss unrelentingly on the filthy street, he thought of how funny it was that the moment he ran away from home he became tame. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
After finding some sketchy  standing outside Ray’s Liquor, he spent all of the previous night’s tips. And he’d gotten stoned, for the first time in months. And then he’d decided to go through with it. He’d decided to fly. And now he cursed himself for it.
The loud and unpleasant sound of a taxi’s horn brought him back to the gray, wet day. He had to do it. There’s no use standing here like a little bitch. He told himself, and even as he did, he smiled. There’s the old Augie.
He turned and there they were. Shiny, swift, silent. He looked helplessly at the countless passengers rushing in and out of them on all sides. Why could they do it and he couldn’t?
He put one foot in front of the other, taking a tentative step towards the doors. A man bumped into him.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” Augie snapped. The man didn’t even look back.
Fuck him. Fuck this. Fuck it all.
Before he knew it, Augie was walking. He was walking at what felt like a normal pace, but he soon discovered was fast. Too fast to look entire normal, perhaps, but he didn’t care. It was as if this moment had all of the anger and angst Augie felt wrapped up in one.
His mother, Amy, his old life, Anastasia, his father. Mostly his father. And then there he was, standing inside. He felt nauseous and shaky. And he was craving a cigarette.
All he’d done since buying this ticket was suck in nicotine. Any start on quitting he’d made since leaving Orange County was damned to hell, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
He checking himself in with one of the machines, not sure if he was really ready to interact with a human being. As soon as he’d found his gate, number 11, he looked around for a duty free shop.
“Marlboro Red,” he said crassly to the woman behind the counter. She couldn’t have been older than 20, but she looked cheap and overdone. But boy, was she giving him the eyes.
“You know smoking’s bad for you, babe” she said flirtatiously.
“So it wearing three tons of makeup and putting out every chance you get, so you’re not one to talk, are you sweetheart,” I said sardonically. Ah, here comes the offensive wit. The closer to Orange County he got, the more himself he was becoming. The thought disturbed him.
His fingers itched to rip open the pack and light up, but he knew he couldn’t until hge was back in California. He sat, his foot twitching impatiently, waiting for the cool female voice to announce his boarding zone. Finally the time came and he stood, hauling his backpack onto his shoulder, still clutching the cigarettes in his hand.
He stood in line, watching the people filed in front of him. He smiled wryly to himself, thinking how much like 1st graders lined up for recess they all looked.
Now no trace of the panic he had felt in his chest earlier constricted him. But as he drew closer and closer to the front of the line he realized: he didn’t want to go home. His breath was coming in short gasps. He was second to last. He didn’t need to face his father just yet. But he couldn’t give up on his promise to fly either. He was first in line now, the flight attendant was smiling at him pleasantly...