+ Intro: Breaking Tradition

“I don’t understand why you want to throw your life away!”
“I’m not throwing my life away. I’m doing what I want to do.” Azaria replied calmly as she flipped the page of the latest horror novel to hit book stores. Her mother had started her infamous get-a-decent-job speech again. She’d heard it numerous times before and had resigned to no longer argue with her mother but to firmly reiterate her point that a job in the corporate sector simply wasn’t for her. She refused to give in to their expectations and this is probably what upset her mother most about the whole thing.

You see, the Hawthornes had worked hard to secure cushy executive positions with all the perks at Doo Peas Corporation. Darryn, Azaria’s twin brother, had recently hopped on the bandwagon with his job as a coffee runner. He had a vaulting ambition to rise up the ranks and join his parents on the board of directors. Azaria had a vaulting ambition too – hers was to make it as a star news anchor.

She had always been the proverbial black sheep of the family. While her family was conservative and dull – as she often described them – she was daring and sought adventure. Her purple hair and collection of tattoos set her apart. Furthermore, her choosing to associate with a ‘band of misfits’ cast her out even more from the family. But she didn’t mind. It was who she was and they just had to accept it.

“Fine. Do as you please but when you fall flat on your face don’t say I never warned you.”

“But you’ll be there to pick me up, right?” Azaria smirked at her mother’s own resignation. The truth was no matter how much they fought over this very issue, no matter how much her mother resented the idea of her only daughter breaking tradition; her mother was always there for her.

“Don’t I always?” Her mother recalled the day when Azaria was caught for under-age drinking at the beach one summer. She had to bribe the police officer not to file a charge and to keep the matter under the carpet. 

“Good! Then you won’t mind me moving to Bridgeport with Cam next week? There are a few positions available at the local paper.” She said this nonchalantly as she knew her mother would start to protest: firstly about her moving away to the city unsupervised and secondly with Cameron; the girl whom her mother blamed for the drinking debacle.