by Claire Cain
Ok, that was going a little far. But I hated flying, and my ability to assume that every flight would end with my fiery death was a real skill. I’d coddled it and developed it into a full grown boy of paranoia.
But back to my imminent death.
The plane finally caught the bottom of the air pocket, or whatever the hell it was that made turbulence happen, and leveled out. I kept my eyes closed tight, not daring to open them, my body still tense and fully expecting the horror show to continue any second. Eleven minutes of this crap I thought to myself as I eyed my watch. Eleven minutes of straight up gut-wrenching awfulness in the skies. 29 minutes until touchdown, if my watch hasn’t betrayed me and the drunk pilots can still tell time.
“Ma’am?”
My body had overheated in my panic, and my glasses were smudged. My jeans felt too tight around my belly and my V-neck shirt was damp under my arms and at my back. My hair felt too tight there piled on top of my head in a bun.
“Ma’am.”
I took a deep breath and talked myself down. It’s fine. Turbulence is normal. Plane travel is perfectly normal and safe. You’re more likely to die—
“Ma’am?” The voice came from right next to me and cut through my thoughts, and I realized this person was talking to me. I opened my eyes hopefully, like maybe this stranger had the ability to control whether we’d hit another air pocket or a flock of birds and go plummeting to our deaths.
“Uh, yes?” My voice was rough and I wasn’t sure whether I’d made any noises. I wasn’t a screamer, so probably not, but my vocal chords felt surprised by my effort to speak.
“You…ok?” The voice spoke again, tentatively. It was deep, and a little gravelly, like it hadn’t been used lately. I took another breath and breathed it out and summoned a polite smile as I turned to look at him.
“Yes, I’m ok.” I smiled and took in the stranger, my seat companion in 11B to my A.
Oh.
Bright brown eyes in their own shade of milk chocolate looked back at me, hovering over a dark brown beard tinged with deep red. A mouth pulled into a closed-mouth, slight smile. I felt the familiar discomfort with my peer whizz through my already agitated belly as I registered this partner-in-row-11 was likely just a few years older than me. Max ten. Yep, a peer.
“Good. Good.” He nodded his head a little, but his brow furrowed.
“Are you?” I asked, taking in his large build, his big arms, and his… oh. His hand. That I was holding. In a death grip. I released his hand as I said, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. I don’t even remember grabbing your hand. I’m so sorry!” I brought my hands to my face to press them over my mouth and shook my head at myself. If I hadn’t already been red-faced from bracing against my impending doom, I might have blushed in awkwardness.
The man laughed quietly. “Don’t worry about it. This is pretty bad turbulence.”
I pulled my hand away and adjusted my glasses that had slid down my nose. “It is, isn’t it? I definitely hate flying, but this seems particularly—” And again. The plane dropped and then rumbled and I rammed my back against the seat taking short, shallow breaths. I felt a hand cover my right hand, the one currently death-gripping the arm rest between the seats.
“What’s your name ma’am?” I heard that rough voice say. Sometime later I knew I’d spend time thinking about why this man was calling me ma’am when he was definitely close to my age. I mean, he could not be younger than me, could he? Had the turbulence of flight 707 prematurely aged me that significantly? But in the moment, I just answered.
“Elizabeth.”
“Good. Nice to meet you, Elizabeth.” His voice was steady despite the plane’s cruel jolting.
I couldn’t respond. I had to stay braced against the seat with my eyes closed or I’d end up… I didn’t know. The plane would crash, or at the very least, my body would disintegrate from terror. So I focused on bracing myself, every muscle in my body tense, barely hearing his voice.
“I’m Jake. We’re going to be fine.” His voice was still calm but it had an edge of command in it, like his decision that we’d be fine mattered in the context of Delta flight 707. Strangely, I believed him. I let my eyes slowly open, one at a time, and tried to relax my shoulders.
“I’m so sorry you’re next to me. I hate flying.” My voice was shaky.
“Where are you going?”
“Nashville. I’m moving there. I’ve actually never been there before, but I’m moving, so I’m flying, or at least I’m hoping we’ll keep flying and not end up crashing before I ever do actually end up there.” I babbled this nonsense and he stayed focused on me, his serious but patient face watching me, still covering my right hand with his left on the arm rest.
“That sounds exciting,” he offered, and if I’d been in my right mind, I might have laughed at how serious and unexcited his voice was. He was focused.
“Yep.” I said it in a gulp as I breathed through another series of rumbles. I kept focused on the tray table, kept focused on breathing normal breaths instead of shallow ones, and slowly let myself release the tension as the plane stayed steady.
“Should be the end of the turbulence folks, sorry about that. Pretty rough air there, but we should have a smooth flight now—‘bout 25 minutes to Nashville.” The captain’s voice spoke life back into my brain, and I looked over at my apparently fearless seat companion.
“Again, so sorry,” I said as I lifted my hand, and he quickly pulled his away. He was watching me, maybe waiting for me to freak out again, or maybe just curious about what kind of crazy person I really was. I pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose and pulled at my seatbelt tight, tighter.
“You going to make it?” He asked, just the smallest corner of his mouth turning up. His brown eyes studied me and my addled brain took that moment to think he has great eyebrows like that was pertinent to the situation. Like eyebrows had bearing on me surviving this flight. Ugh.
“Yes,” I said, and then turned away because I realized we were locked in some pretty intense eye contact considering I had no clue who this person was other than he was willing to hold my hand so I didn’t evaporate into the abyss of fear a few minutes ago. “Where are you coming from?”
“DC area. Heading home now,” he said. He leaned back in his seat but kept looking at me. I half expected him to shove in his ear buds and tune me out.
“DC is a great city. I like it,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes at how incapable I was at small talk. “What were you doing there?” Before the words were out of my mouth, I thought it was maybe too personal of a question. But that was something people asked a fellow passenger, right?
He shifted in his seat a little, and that serious, bearded face frowned a little. “Funeral.” Just the one word, but it was enough.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and watched a pained look crossed his face.
“It was my father’s. We weren’t close.” He said the words slowly, his voice still graveled and I felt a pang of guilt for making him speak.
“I’m sorry. Losing a parent seems like a very difficult thing.” I felt the impulse to pat his hand, or something, to show him my regret for his loss. We’d already crossed the physical boundary of handholding thanks to my complete inability to maintain sanity in the face of a turbulent flight, but I didn’t want to seem overly aggressive, so I looked him in the eye hoping to convey my sorrow for his loss, even if a distant one, with my eyes and face. He nodded.
“Your wife? Kids? Were they with you?” I asked, for some reason compelled not to leave our conversation there.
He shook his head. “No wife or kids. Not in the cards for me.” His eyes flickered to mine, then back to looking ahead of him, past the curtain into first class, and past the nose of the plane. Based on his intensity, he could likely see beyond the horizon.
“Oh, ok.” I had no idea what else to say. I just assumed he would have a family the way I assume most people in their thirties did. That wasn’t really the case, but I’d
realized that outside of New York, people usually did get married and start their families younger. The fact that he said it “wasn’t in the cards” was so peculiar and I desperately wanted to ask him why he said that. But the situation didn’t allow for that. It wouldn’t help his grief to have me prying into why he thought he’d be a perpetual bachelor.
I turned my book over in my hands, then over again. I fanned the pages and pictured my heart, which was still beating pretty quickly, and tried to slow it down. Sometimes I felt like if I thought hard enough about something, I could will it into submission. I could make myself calm down, if I thought about it hard enough.
“And you? Is your husband moving with you?” His question startled me.
“My husband? Oh, no. No husband. No boyfriend. Just me. Not even a cat, though I should probably get one to satisfy the stereotype. Hopefully someday I’ll have a… well. Yeah. So. Nope. Just me.” I caught myself before I launched into telling this unsuspecting stranger about my very real desire to have a husband and children. That desire felt all the more real in the wake of my near death experience there on flight 707.
Then, we sat there. We just sat, and didn’t speak anymore, which I felt like might be his natural state of being. I couldn’t read him without turning to look at him and that would have been too obvious since we were smashed together in our seats, so I just took out my book and read the same few paragraphs over and over again until we landed, layering a prayer for survival in my mind over the words of the book.
Catch more of Ellie and Jake in early 2019! Sign up for the newsletter for release info and exclusive content at http://eepurl.com/dGuIBv