Airports, Exes, and Other Things I'm Over

by Shani Petroff

  “I don’t care. I want you out of my life, Zev.”

  “You’ll throw away a whole year, everything we have, without even talking?”

  I shrugged my shoulder. I wasn’t the one who trashed what we had—the blame for that was solely on him.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not going to let you do that. You were the one who showed me that if something’s important to you, you don’t give up. You’re performing at Meta tomorrow. You fought for that. You would have done almost anything for a shot. That’s how I feel about you. I’m going to prove it to you. You’ll see.”

  “Don’t waste your time,” I told him.

  “I’m not,” he said. “Fighting for what you want is never a waste.”

  I just turned on my heels and walked away from him, before I said something I’d totally regret.…

  FIFTEEN

  Fitz moved his bag off one of the empty seats next to him when he saw me, and I sat down.

  “Get the flight?” he asked, pulling his headphones away from his ears.

  I held up my crossed fingers. “On standby.”

  He nodded.

  I wasn’t really in the mood to talk, so I took out my headphones, too, and put them on. I glanced around for signs of Zev. He hadn’t followed me and was nowhere to be seen. My words must have gotten through to him. That was a good thing, I reminded myself.

  I put my music list on shuffle, and within seconds of closing my eyes, I felt my seat shift. Someone took the chair next to me, and I didn’t need to look to know who it was. So much for getting through.…

  “An espresso Frappuccino with two percent,” Zev said.

  My go-to stress drink. Zev knew that. I wanted it so bad. I could say no, and then go buy my own, but then Fitz would probably wonder why. I didn’t want to explain my drama.

  I peeked over at him. “No, thanks.”

  “Come on,” he said, and dangled the drink. “I had them hold the whipped cream.” I hated whipped cream. To me it tasted like watered-down ice cream.

  “Not thirsty.” Although my mouth was starting to salivate.

  “If you don’t take it, you know I’m just going to throw it away.” Zev didn’t do coffee, he didn’t like the flavor. He wouldn’t even touch tiramisu or coffee ice cream. I should have known something was wrong with him right there.

  “Fine,” I said, “but only because I think it would be a waste. It doesn’t change things.”

  “I know,” he said, but was smiling all the same. I took the drink and looked away. I didn’t want to see that dimple.

  “Tell me more about the performance,” he said.

  I swirled the straw around in my drink. I really shouldn’t be talking to him. “It’s at eight,” I said. Ugh. Why did I do that? He was bound to show up now. A part of me wanted that, but not the smart part.

  I took out my phone and texted Trina.

  My phone instantly started to ring. I left my stuff and took the call over by the window. “Sari, you know I support you a hundred percent…,” Trina said. I stared out at the planes on the tarmac. This sounded like the start to something I didn’t want to hear. “If you want to get back together with him, I have your back. But…,” she paused.

  “What? What is it?”

  “It’s Bethanne.” I could hear the hesitation in her voice. “She’s been posting on GroupIt again. I didn’t want to say anything, but you should see what she’s writing underneath the pictures of her and Zev before you even consider letting him back in.”

  I told her I’d call her back later and immediately punched up GroupIt. I had already seen the picture of Zev with his arm around Bethanne, but it still made me cringe. Only now there were a bunch of comments below it.

  “You can’t keep a dynamic duo apart,” Bethanne wrote. It got a bunch of likes. Someone responded, “his girlfriend may object.” She answered with, “what girlfriend?;) Mr. Geller is a free man, he told me himself. But this was just a one-night-only reunion special. Who wants a boyfriend senior year?”

  I felt a knot in my throat, like a Ping-Pong ball was stuck in there. There it was for the whole world to see. Here I was, a teeny, tiny part of me actually thinking maybe, possibly I could fix things with Zev, that I should hear him out like he’d been begging me to do, but it would have all been for nothing—it wasn’t me he wanted.

  Other than today and when he showed up at my gram’s door, the only communication I’d had with him was super late last Friday night when I texted him that we were over. The only people who knew we broke up were my family, Trina, and Zev himself. Trina said she wasn’t going to say anything.

  But somehow Bethanne knew.

  Zev told her.

  He must have gotten in touch with her to say he was single. But since she apparently didn’t want him, instead preferring to be single senior year, here he was crawling back to me.

  I was a fool. How could I buy into the whole “you’re worth fighting for, I love you” nonsense? Zev was amazing at improv, of course he could lay it on thick. Just look what he did with the Harry Potter book guy. And I fell for it.

  I glared in his direction. He was looking right at me. I walked to the trash can and in the most exaggerated fashion possible, dropped the drink in, and made my way back to my seat.

  “You’re such an ass,” I hissed at him, quiet enough so Fitz wouldn’t hear over his headphones.

  “What? What did I do?” Zev asked.

  I just rolled my eyes. Then I moved closer to Fitz, and tapped his arm.

  It was Zev’s turn to know what it felt like to be second choice.

  SIXTEEN

  “Whatcha listening to?” I asked Fitz.

  It was the sound of the ocean. He said it helped him relax. I wanted to say there were hundreds of thousands of amazing calming songs that would be so much better than just waves, but I bit my tongue. This conversation was for Zev’s benefit, not Fitz’s. So instead, I told him I’d need to download the track and complimented his choice.

  If Zev thought I was a flirt in the past, he’d seen nothing yet. For the next ten minutes, I listened intently to everything Fitz had to say, laughed at jokes that weren’t funny, and playfully touched his arm. Zev tried to get in on the conversation, but I edged him out. I positioned my back toward him and made myself a partition between him and Fitz. Bethanne wasn’t the only girl who didn’t want Zev anymore.

  The woman at the counter said something over the speaker but it was hard to hear. She sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” a guy across from me said.

  I stood up and headed toward the gate. I wasn’t alone. A crowd had gathered there. “I’m sorry,” the agent said. “The flight has been canceled.”

  It seemed everyone started talking at once, firing questions and complaints at her.

  “How come?” “Can I get on the next flight?” “I need to get home.” “Are the rest of the flights still running?” The last one was me. I didn’t get an answer.

  Fitz checked his phone, he had an email and text from the airline. “They put me on the eight p.m. There’s no way that’s getting out of here tonight. I’m going to go see if I can get an earlier flight. Maybe I can get on yours.”

  If mine was still running.

  I went toward gate 1, where the 2:00 p.m. would be taking off from. It was on the opposite side of the airport. I made it about halfway before I had to stop and take off my shoes. Was it too late to go fish through the trash for my sneakers? They might have been wet and sticky, but at least that was better than walking on what felt like burning stakes.

  “I have a pair of socks if you want them,” Zev said.

  “The only thing I want from you is to leave me alone.”

  He shook his head. “Sari, what did I do? I thought things were starting to get a little better between us. What happened?”

  “Ask Bethanne.”

  He stood there waiting for me to
say more, but I didn’t. I focused on my bag. I had my own socks in there somewhere. Not that I could find them. Great. Just great. I guess I was going barefoot, because I wasn’t going to stand there waiting for Zev to interrogate me some more. Although the way my trip was going, I was probably going to wind up with a foot fungus.

  “You don’t need to come with me,” I hissed at him.

  “We’re going to the same place,” he said, his voice quiet.

  I didn’t need the reminder.

  I breathed a small sigh of relief when I reached my gate. The board above said the flight was still on time. It really needed to stay that way.

  Unfortunately, all I could do now was wait.

  “You’ll get home in time for the concert,” Zev said, reading my mind like he always did. It was a lot more endearing when I liked him. Now it was just annoying.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “We’ll make this work,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  “We won’t do anything.” I needed to get away from him. One more second of listening to Zev trying to play the knight in shining armor was bound to make me explode. I just needed to sit and relax.

  Not too far from me there was an empty row, but that meant Zev would plop down next to me. There was also a solo space next to a mom and her three kids—one of whom was running in circles pretending to be an airplane, the second crying on the woman’s lap, and the third bouncing in her seat like it was a trampoline. The choice was clear—the mom and the kids. I’d take three screaming children under the age of five over Zev in a heartbeat.

  After about ten minutes, though, I was thinking maybe I should have found a third option.

  “Jennifer, leave the girl’s hair alone,” the mother instructed her daughter. She had been tugging at my hair and wrapping it around her fingers.

  “It’s okay,” I said, as the mom tried to pry the strands from her daughter’s tight fist with one hand while holding onto her baby with the other.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Jennifer, let go.”

  “It’s okay. Honestly, this has been the least stressful part of my day so far.”

  “That good, huh?” she asked, finally freeing my hair. She put a cartoon on her phone and handed it to the little girl. Within seconds the child was zombified in front of the screen, and it was like I didn’t exist. If only that would work with Zev.

  “Yep,” I said, glancing over at my ex. He was diagonally across from me, watching everything I did. “So,” I said changing the subject. “Heading home or are you Florida based?”

  “Hopefully heading home.” She looked up at the departure board. “But the weather has me worried.”

  “Me too. Are you flying to New York, too?”

  She shook her head. “Connecticut, but my husband says they’ve already started canceling flights there. I’ve already been delayed two hours.” I did not want to hear that. The storm was supposed to head north, if Connecticut was already having issues, the city was probably a disaster. “Everything is so disorganized here,” she continued, “they changed my gate but I didn’t find out until most of the seats by the new flight were taken. I’m not moving again until I know what’s going on for sure. I’m afraid we might not make it home tonight.”

  “Home, home, home,” the little kid circling in front of us started chanting loudly. “I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home.”

  The woman tried to console him. “I know, baby. Why don’t you watch the show with your sister?”

  “No, I want to go home,” he cried.

  “If you can avoid traveling solo with three kids. Do it,” his mother told me.

  But I knew exactly how the kid felt. I wanted to scream about going home, too. If I didn’t think I’d get kicked out, or become a viral video, I might have joined him.

  “I hope they call us soon,” she said, looking at the departures again. “Did you say you were on this New York flight?”

  “Yeah, why?” I asked.

  She pointed to the board.

  It had changed. And not for the better.

  My flight was canceled.

  SEVENTEEN

  No. No. No. NO. Why was this happening to me? What had I done to deserve this? I took back what I said last week about flying. It sucked. I absolutely hated the airport.

  I checked my email. “This makes no sense,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Michigan?” Zev asked, wheeling his carry-on toward me.

  I nodded. I couldn’t believe they were trying to route me there. There was no logic to it.

  “Me too,” he said.

  I was too upset to even tell him to get lost. Right now it was the airline that had all my fury. Instead of my direct flight to New York, they rebooked me on one to Michigan in two hours that would then connect to the city. It was so stupid. I didn’t need to go farther north, let alone west, to come back down and over.

  I stood up and moved closer to the main departure board. Zev followed. “We’re just going to wind up stuck there,” I said. “They’ve already canceled a bunch of flights. If I’m going to get stuck somewhere, I’d rather it be Florida.” Not that I wanted to be stuck anywhere. I had to get home. “Wait,” I said, studying the board, “the 12:22 and the 3:15 p.m. are still running. Why is our flight canceled?”

  “No idea,” Zev said. He nodded toward the agents ahead. “It doesn’t look like they know, either.”

  It was true. They looked overwhelmed. One wasn’t even dealing with passengers, she was just going through some printed sheets. The other was staring silently at his computer screen while a man stood there waiting. A huge line had already formed.

  I needed to get in it, too, so I could get rebooked. I turned to go and smashed my toe into Zev’s suitcase.

  “Damn it, Zev,” I moaned. Even the simplest things were tripping me up. I guess that happened when you were focused on salvaging the remnants of what used to be your life.

  “What?”

  “You and your stupid bag. You’re always in my way. Why are you even standing here? Why aren’t you in one of those other lines?” I knew it wasn’t his fault. I was the one who was barefoot. I was the one who ran into his carry-on. Even though he was the one to bring that ridiculous thing. It was like titanium or something. He had been so impressed by how sturdy it was when he got it. The dumbest things made him happy.

  “Okay, I’m going.” He held up his hands. “I’ll take the line there,” he pointed to the one a couple of gates away. “You take the one here. We’ll see who gets to the front first. I’ll text you if I manage to get an earlier flight, so that you can get on it, too, okay?”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said, and moved to the line closest to us. At this point, I would have made a deal with the devil if it got me home.

  “Sari!”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Are you okay?”

  It was Fitz.

  “Sorry,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “Thought you were someone else. I’m just fed up.”

  “Yeah,” he commiserated, taking the spot behind me. His luck was about as bad as mine. He had actually gotten standby on my flight, three minutes before it was canceled.

  “Unbelievable,” I said. “This place is a mess.”

  “Tell me about it. Look at that,” he said, nodding his head toward a woman cutting the front of the line and going directly to the agent. “I don’t get people sometimes.”

  No way. This was not happening. Not today. Not on my watch. “Excuse me,” I called out. “There’s a line.”

  “I just have a quick question,” she said, waving me off, like I was the one being rude and unreasonable.

  Uh-uh. I was not having it. I’d been in too many lines today to let some random woman mosey on up and make the rest of us wait even longer. “Lots of people here just have a quick question. That’s why there’s a line. One you need to get in.”

  “Mind your own business,” she said.

  “Excuse me? Your cutting in fron
t of me is my business.” Was I seriously getting in a fight with a stranger in the airport? “You need to move.” Apparently, I was. That’s how pissed I had become.

  “It will just take two seconds,” she said, and started showing her ticket to the agent.

  “I don’t care.” It was like my mouth had a mind of its own. And that mind had very strong beliefs on what was right and what was wrong—and self-entitlement belonged in the wrong category. Not that I was much better causing a scene and all. Still … I was not risking her taking the seat I needed to get home. “You’re not going to let her cut in front of everyone, are you?” I asked the agent. “There’s a whole line that’s been waiting.”

  Fitz and everyone else around us were silent. Probably waiting to see what I’d do if the agent let the shrew have her way.

  The agent hemmed for a moment. The lady kept shoving her ticket in his face, but I kept my eyes laser focused on him. I wasn’t letting him off the hook. He had to do what was right. I needed this.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he told her. “You do have to get in line.”

  “This is ridiculous,” she said, and stormed off, whipping her hair behind her as she stalked away. “Hope you miss your flight,” she muttered to me as she passed.

  “Likewise,” I shot back. But I didn’t care, she could scowl and hate me as much as she wanted. I finally had a win today. It was small, and likely wouldn’t change anything, but it made me feel like some things in the universe were right and just.

  “Thank you,” the guy in front of me said.

  “Yeah,” Fitz said, “I for one am impressed. Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

  “I may have overreacted.”

  “No, you were in the right,” he said.

  I smiled. I felt like I could breathe a little easier, like a tiny bit of my anger disappeared along with her. Although with my current luck, this woman would come back to haunt me in the future. “You know she’s going to wind up being one of my professors next year.”

  Fitz laughed. “Or a major recording scout.”

  “My dad’s boss,” I suggested.

  “Or maybe,” Fitz said, “she’s just an overentitled, selfish woman whom you’ll never have to deal with again; who finally got what she deserved.”