Airports, Exes, and Other Things I'm Over

by Shani Petroff

  “Can I at least get my stuff?” I asked. I hated that Ruby, my phone, wallet, etc., were just sitting there unattended.

  “It’ll be fine,” he said.

  I looked for Fitz, hoping he’d grab my things for me, but he was gone. I kind of thought he would wait, since his flight was later than mine, but I guess not. I was a little disappointed.

  The female agent came by five minutes later. Yeah, the 10:00 a.m. was definitely out.

  “I don’t know why my arm lit up,” I said, lifting my sleeve. “There’s nothing there. And the other is probably my bra. There’s an underwire.”

  “Arms out,” was all she said.

  She was just doing her job, I knew that, but I still couldn’t help but cringe as she did the pat down. I could not catch a break today.

  When I finally got the clear, I went to grab my things. I sat by a nearby bench and put on my sneakers.

  “Surprise.” I looked up.

  It was Fitz, holding a smoothie. “I thought you could use this,” he said.

  “Thank you.” That was so sweet of him. I forced myself to take a sip and smile. The gesture was so nice, I wasn’t going to refuse the drink, even though I wasn’t in the mood for it. “Really, this was totally sweet.” The 10:00 a.m. flight was out, but the 11:00 a.m. was looking better and better.

  Fitz and I headed to the terminal together. I stumbled getting onto the moving walkway. Fortunately, I caught myself before I sent smoothie everywhere.

  “Careful,” he said.

  “I’m not a klutz, I promise.” I wasn’t. It was just the cup was wet and slippery and getting on and off those walkways tended to trip me up. Same with escalators. I always took one beat too long before making my move. I’d heard too many horror stories about shoelaces getting caught and people falling. It was another downside of my mom watching so much weather, the news was always left on, and I heard a lot of stories I could have lived without.

  “No judgments,” he said. Then he told me a story about how he added a pull-up bar to his dorm-room door, but didn’t install it right, and fell on his butt just as his roommate and friends walked in.

  We laughed and told embarrassing stories the rest of the way to the terminal. Maybe things weren’t so bad, after all.

  Or maybe they were.

  Right as we neared the end of the moving walkway, I saw a familiar figure looming by the first gate in the terminal.

  Zev.

  Not again. Why was he here? It was way too early. He wasn’t supposed to be at the airport for hours.

  He caught my eye, and everything that could go wrong did.

  I was so focused on him, that I didn’t realize I had made it to the end of the walkway. I lost my footing and lunged forward. I caught myself. Sort of. I didn’t fall. But my smoothie did. Cold, bright-pink liquefied fruit was all over my feet, my sweats, and the floor.

  Yep. That good airport karma I used to have?

  It was long, long gone.

  THIRTEEN

  Fitz went to get napkins to help clean up my mess, which just left me and Zev. Sure, there were people moving all around us, but they just blurred in the background. All I could see was my ex. He was five feet away and taking a step forward.

  “Do not come any closer,” I warned him. “Just go.”

  “Sari, please let’s just talk.”

  “What’s there to talk about, Zev? I walked in on you kissing your ex. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.” All the memories from that night washed over me, and I gripped the guitar case handle. “I can’t do this right now. You want to do something for me? Stay here, make sure no one slips, and clean this thing up when Fitz gets back. I’m going to go change.”

  “Who’s Fitz—” I heard him start to say.

  I didn’t answer. I just took off my shoes and ran to the nearest restroom. Fortunately, it wasn’t too crowded. I dropped my stuff in the corner and looked in the mirror.

  You are not going to cry. You are capable, confident, and can do whatever you set your mind to. I didn’t feel very confident, though. I felt like a mess. I looked like one, too. Time to change that. My sneakers weren’t salvageable. They were white tennis shoes. At least they used to be. Now they were sticky, wet pink ones. I was never getting that out of the nylon. I tossed them in the trash, fished through my backpack, and found what I was looking for. I had stashed away my favorite black maxidress and a pair of sky-high heels. It wasn’t my first choice for airport attire, but maybe it was just what I needed. Just because I felt like crap, didn’t mean I had to look like it. I changed out of the dirty sweats and T-shirt and into the dress. My new outfit was already picking up my mood. I decided to take it one step further.

  I put my makeup bag and phone on the counter. There wasn’t anyone too nearby, so I punched up Trina’s name and FaceTimed her. I hoped it wasn’t too creepy, doing that in a bathroom, but I really needed to talk to her and have both of my hands free to do my makeup.

  “Hello,” she yawned.

  “Did I wake you?” She was always up early, I was the one who usually slept the morning away.

  “Yeah, I didn’t get home ’til really late last night,” she said, rubbing her face.

  “What happened to the curfew?” I asked.

  Trina’s eyes lit up. “There was none. Keisha went back to her dorm and took me with her. My first college party.”

  “Wait. You and your sister actually hung out?! At a party? I thought you were ready to kill her,” I said, pulling out my mascara and getting to work.

  “I was. All the know-it-all stuff she’d been spewing, but she totally made up for it. This party seriously put all of our high school ones to shame.” She bit her lip, probably realizing just about anything would be better than the last party we’d been to together. She quickly got off that point. “Next year, you are totally coming to all of the NYU parties with me.”

  I loved that we were both going to college in the city. “Definitely.”

  Trina leaned in, her face becoming bigger on my screen. “Why are you putting on enough contour to rival a Kardashian?”

  “Because,” I said, using my fingers to blend the shadows, “we can’t all wake up looking like a beauty queen like you.”

  “Oh, please,” she said.

  But it was true. Trina was naturally beautiful.

  “Like you’re one to talk. You know you’re pretty,” she added. “Besides you barely wear makeup at school, why are you doing this for the airport?”

  “If I have to be stuck with Voldemort, I might as well make him see what he’s missing.”

  “Wait, he’s there?!”

  I nodded.

  “How could you let me go on about my sister, when you had a run-in with him?”

  “Believe me, the distraction was welcome.” I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to detangle the curls.

  “Did you talk?” she asked.

  I told her what happened with Fitz being there and the smoothie.

  “This is actually amazing,” she said, sitting up in her bed. “Zev is going to flip over seeing you with Fitz. He’ll be so jealous. If you haven’t made a move yet, now is the time.”

  “Trina.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I know you are.” I let out a sigh. “It’s just seeing Zev. I still want him.”

  “You’re not taking him back, are you?”

  “What? No! There’s no way. Not after what he did. Just seeing him was hard, though. I need more time to get over it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said as I slipped on the heels and moved the phone so she could get a clear look at the final results.

  “Amazing,” she said. “Zev is not going to know what to do with himself.”

  “Thanks.” I actually felt good. I had shoved the dress and shoes into my bag as a safety, in case my luggage got lost. I was going to wear them for my performance, and I wasn’t risking an airport screwup and them winding up in South
Dakota or Hawaii. Luckily, my over-preparedness was coming in handy today.

  Trina and I said our good-byes, and I headed back into the main concourse, with my head held high.

  Zev Geller could eat his heart out.

  FOURTEEN

  Fitz and Zev were still standing where I had left them, only they were talking and smiling. Seriously? I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Fitz was so laid-back and chill. And everybody liked Zev. Well, everybody but me. He was one of those guys who managed to transcend the high school hierarchy. He was easygoing and funny and every group seemed to welcome him. They all smiled at him in the halls and said hello. It wasn’t like we were a particularly unfriendly school or anything, but for the most part, if you weren’t friends with someone, you just kind of ignored them in the halls and went on with your day. But not Zev. He was a regular Mr. Rogers, well, if Mr. Rogers had been a little more hipster looking, snarky, and a cheater.

  Both guys seemed to notice me walking toward them at the same time. It may have been my imagination or wishful thinking, but I’m pretty sure both of their jaws dropped slightly.

  “Thought I’d slip into something a little less comfortable,” I said. “And a little cleaner.”

  “You look, I mean, you…,” Zev stumbled.

  I ignored him. “Thanks for cleaning up the mess,” I said to Fitz. “Sorry I bolted. I just needed to get those shoes off.” Although I was beginning to feel the same about my current ones. They had four-inch heels and were already starting to irritate me.

  “Your friend did most of it,” Fitz said.

  “I’m her—”

  “Classmate,” I finished Zev’s sentence, before he could say boyfriend. Because that he definitely wasn’t.

  Fitz seemed to sense something was up, but he didn’t comment. “Should we get to the gate?” he asked instead.

  Oh. My. God. Here I was worrying about my outfit and Zev, when I should have been focusing on getting an earlier flight home. How had I let him distract me like this? Getting the ticket should have been the first thing I’d done. Zev was ruining everything again. “Yes,” I said, “I need that earlier flight.”

  I followed Fitz to gate 7. And Zev followed me. I didn’t say anything. I just concentrated on my steps. The heels were pinching at my toes and burning the soles of my feet, and I’d only walked half a terminal in them. The shoes were for the look, not actually for getting around. Especially on hard, cold floors. It was as if each step reverberated inside my body. And lugging a bulky backpack and guitar wasn’t making it any easier. The pain is in your mind. At least that was what I was trying to convince myself because I needed to keep moving.

  At the gate, Fitz told me, and unfortunately Zev, that he’d get us some seats. I got in yet another line to see the ticket agent. This time there were only two people ahead of me. And once again an annoying passenger right at my back.

  “Stop following me,” I told Zev.

  “I’m not. I just want an earlier flight, too.”

  Yeah, right. I shook my head and took out my book. We both knew he was only at the airport right now because he thought I was going to try and catch an earlier flight like I did on the way down here.

  “Sari—”

  “Reading,” I said.

  “I just want to—”

  “What part of ‘reading’ don’t you understand?”

  “You and that guy…,” his voice trailed off.

  “No business of yours,” I said, refusing to look up from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. “You saw to that.”

  “Please just tell me you and the Incredible Hulk are not together.”

  “I like to think of him more as Captain America.” This time I peered over the pages to sneer at him.

  He must have realized he wasn’t getting anywhere, so he switched tactics. “He mentioned something about you having a performance to get back to. What’s that about?”

  This one stung. Zev had always been so confident that I’d get to perform at Meta. He even helped Trina and me convince the owner to let us in. He was the one who bought the fluorescent wristbands the club uses for the under-twenty-one crowd. He left them there with a note about how important getting in was to us and how we’d promise to wear them. Sheila finally gave in. But she made us swear we wouldn’t spread the word—she didn’t want her club filled with eighteen-year-olds. Not calling Zev to tell him about my performance had been really hard.

  “Meta. Tomorrow night,” I said quietly.

  “Sari, that’s amazing. This is huge. Congratulations. I knew you’d get in there sooner or later.” He looked so happy for me that I felt my eyes well up. “Which songs are you doing?” he asked. “Are you going to end with ‘Living, Loving, You’?” That was the song I wrote about him. It was my best, but I didn’t have it on my list. I didn’t think I could get through it.

  I shook my head.

  He kept peppering me with questions, but fortunately the agent called me up.

  I pushed Zev and my burning feet out of my mind and flashed the woman my biggest smile. “Hi, I was hoping you could please help me. I’m supposed to be on the two p.m. back to New York, but I was wondering if there was room on any of the earlier ones. I know there’s an 11:01, a 12:22. I don’t care if it takes me into LaGuardia, JFK, Newark; any of them is fine.”

  “Me too,” Zev said joining me. “We’re together.”

  I was going to kill him, but I didn’t want to make a scene. I wanted help, not to be dragged away by the TSA for strangling my ex-boyfriend. “My seat is the priority,” I told the woman. “If you can just get one, that’s fine.”

  She said she’d take a look, and I thanked her profusely. Only it didn’t matter how much I groveled. They were all booked solid. “I could put you on standby for the 11:01. You’d be numbers three and four.”

  “That would be amazing, yes, thank you,” I said.

  I was feeling slightly hopeful. There was a storm brewing back home, so there was a chance a bunch of people would decide to stick it out in Florida for a few days. I just needed a family of three to cancel, and I’d be all set. Otherwise I could still use my original ticket for 2:00 p.m. So far, there hadn’t been any flights canceled. I just needed that to last a little longer.

  After we finished at the counter, Zev continued to follow me.

  “Enough,” I said.

  “I just need you to hear me out,” he said. “What happened at the party. It’s not what it looked like.”

  “No?” I said, straining to keep my volume low. “Did Bethanne put an evil spell on you that magically caused you to kiss? Maybe your lips just fell onto hers? I don’t need pathetic excuses, Zev. I don’t want to hear it.”

  He put his hand on my arm. “Sari…”

  I yanked it away. “Do not touch me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Go.” I took a step back.

  “I will,” Zev said, “just please, hear me out first.”

  “I told you before, there’s nothing to hear.”

  “Sari, you need to listen to what I have to say.”

  I don’t know what came over me, if it was the way he said my name, or the memories he was bringing up, but somehow—and I don’t even remember doing it—I chucked my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows right at him as I said, “I told you to go.”

  Only he jumped out of the way and the book whacked the guy sitting about five feet away from us in the back.

  My hand flew over my mouth. Oh my God. What did I do?

  I just threw a book at a stranger. I was not a violent person. Yet here I was flinging one of my favorite stories of all time at a random guy. On the upside, my throw was kind of weak and it was the paperback, not the hardcover, but still … it was massive.

  The guy turned around. He did not look happy. Not that I blamed him. Someone, namely me, had just thrown Harry Potter at his back.

  “What the hell was that?” he growled.

  I was so getting kicked out of the airpor
t. “I’m sor—”

  Zev cut me off. “It was me,” he said. “I’m really sorry. We’ve been stuck here, feeling cooped up, and I was joking around. Pretending to save her from one of the seven Horcruxes. But I aimed a little too far with my throw.”

  The guy looked confused. “Hor-what?”

  WHAT WAS HE DOING?

  “You know in Harry Potter,” Zev explained, “the objects where dark wizards hide parts of their soul like in Tom Riddle’s diary. Sorry that was a spoiler. Please tell me you’ve already read the series.”

  “No,” the guy said.

  “Okay, you need to read it,” Zev told him. “I don’t care how old you are, this book is worth your time.”

  Only Zev would spin a story like that and wind up giving out a book recommendation while simultaneously taking the fall for me. He was such a dork. It was part of the reason I’d fallen for him.

  Here he was turning the man I basically assaulted into his new best friend. Seriously, he was standing there offering to buy the guy book one to make up for everything. They were laughing and somehow the conversation turned to stupid stunts they had each pulled off in public.

  Mr. Popularity struck again. The guy had a gift.

  Zev made his way back to me, the book lying on top of his open palms. He gave a slight bow and grinned at me. “Your tome, my lady.”

  I hated that he was being cute and helpful. I hated that when he smiled that little dimple made me want to smile back. I hated that after everything he had done, I still missed him. A lot. I grabbed the book from his hands. “Thank you,” I said, quickly shoving it in my backpack. I was not going to let my willpower falter. Charming did not equal trustworthy, and that’s what I wanted.

  “Now can we talk?” he asked.

  “Just because you helped me, doesn’t mean you get something in return.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Good.” I headed toward Fitz, who was seated near the wall. I could still feel Zev behind me, his shadow looming. I turned around to face him. “How many times do I have to tell you, there’s nothing to say?”

  He picked at his thumbnail. He always did that when he was nervous. “I have something to say.”