by Jade Hart
Nikolai nodded, eyes heavy with compassion. “I asked him if he was making the right decision, but he needs to do this.” He gave me a wry smile. “If you knew him like I used to, you’d know he tends to sink into his head to deal with change.”
“Yes, that’s true. He said he didn’t speak for a week when Cha—”I slapped a hand over my mouth. Way to bring up a super touchy subject.
Nikolai froze, his hand jerked out of mine. “He told you? How? When?”
I frowned at the guilt and pain shadowing his face. My heart squeezed for him. In a way, even though Liam lost a sibling, Nikolai lost more. He lost his future when she died. An odd kindred sprang between us—perhaps it was due to being abandoned by Liam when I needed him most, but I knew Nikolai needed someone to be there for him. Unfortunately, that person wouldn’t be me. My emotions were too complex—complicated by a world that never happened.
“Let’s just say I know about what happened, and you need to move on. Or at least let go of your guilt and allow yourself to grieve without berating yourself.” How did this turn from me being the one who needed comforting to offering the support? Dammit, Liam. Where are you? Why the hell had the hospital let him out? My eyes widened at the thought he might not be safe gallivanting around without being cleared by a doctor.
Nikolai didn’t speak, too wrapped up in ghosts of the past.
Jerking him back to the present, I asked, “Do you know where Liam went? What did the doctor say?”
He closed his eyes for a moment before physically shaking himself. “He went to see the overseeing surgeon before I took him where he wanted to go. They’ve referred him to a facility to continue getting care. He’s to stay there until they’re content with the outcome of his surgery.”
“And where did you take him?” Was he deliberately being obtuse? “Did he go back to New Zealand?” I didn’t know about brain injuries, but wouldn’t the pressure of the cabin do something odd? Hell, he’d been in a coma for twenty-two days he should be in bed. Next to me. Healing. Talking. Reminiscing about our unconventional hook-up and planning our future. Tears pressed again but anger helped push them back. If he was strong enough to walk away from me, I was strong enough not to care. Leaving was a cowardly thing to do—and I wouldn’t sit around waiting for him to ‘find me’.
Where did my life go so wrong?
Nikolai must’ve read the tightening of my jaw and concluded I was pissed. He was right. “You can’t hate him for going, Nina. He lost his wings. That’s huge for him. If you know about…” he stopped, but forced himself to continue, “Charlotte, you’ll understand that flying is his way of dodging pain and things he can’t deal with. Without his wings, he doesn’t have anything good in his life. Nothing to offer you. And he needs that. He needs to feel like he can give you everything—including all of him.”
Why the hell did Nikolai care? He spoke so reverently of his ex-best friend, making me feel guilty for not seeing Liam’s ditching me as his defence mechanism and not a weakness. I didn’t want to understand and forgive him. I wanted him here. With me. Now.
Tears escaped my iron will, leaking down my cheeks. “Isn’t that for me to decide? I could’ve helped him. We could have rehabilitated together.”
He shook his head. “Don’t you see? He couldn’t ask you to do that. He needs to find his own way back to who he was. Don’t hate him. He just needs to be alone right now.”
What about me? I didn’t want to be alone.
The door opened again and the one person I never thought to see in the world came in.
Father.
Oh God. What was he doing here? I couldn’t do this. I didn’t have the reserves to deal with another argument.
Nikolai gave me a soft smile. “Don’t give up on him, Nina. He’ll find you when he’s ready.” Giving me one last look, he nodded at the new visitor and left.
I froze, clutching my sheets. Loneliness wrapped me in its empty embrace. My situation hit home for the first time. I was in a hospital, in Samoa, and the man I’d given my heart to—trusted to be there for me—had gone. For a day, a month, a year… who knew for how long?
A tinkling sensation happened in my chest and I swore it was my heart shattering into unfixable pieces.
Tears leaked faster, but I swiped at my cheeks. You will survive this. You were strong without a man, you will be strong now. I’d go home and continue with my life as if nothing happened. Hopefully, in time, I’d grow to think of my coma-dream as exactly as it was—a fantasy. Not real. Mind-candy—sweet, rich, delicious, and entirely bad for me. Now it was time for a diet.
“Nina?” Dad asked, inching closer to the bed. His receding hairline was unkempt, face lined with more wrinkles than last time I saw him. “Nina…”
“I never, in a million years, thought I’d see you here.” My voice wobbled and I hated myself for allowing Liam to hurt me this way. Damn him!
“How could I not be here? I’m your father. When Kiwi Air called me to tell me what happened…” Tears glossed his eyes and the gruff man who raised me in a single parent home broke in front of me. “I’m so sorry. For everything. I should never have told you who to be. I had no right. Are you okay? Can you ever forgive me?” His torrent of words were a balm against all my past hurt. I never thought I’d hear my father admit to being wrong, let alone apologise. He was such a proud man.
“I forgive you,” I whispered.
His mouth twisted in both amazement and relief. “I’ve missed you so much, little girl. I thought I’d lost you.” I let him gather me gently in a hug and the smell of old spice and rosemary hit me. Home. Liam might have left me, but the crash brought back my father.
He pulled away, smiling. “I was given a free flight to come and see you if I acted as a representative of Kiwi Air. They wanted to pass on their condolences and have booked you on a scheduled service to fly back to NZ in three days.” He pulled an envelope from his corduroy pocket. “They also offered a compensation package of ten thousand dollars for what happened.” He pushed the cheque into my hand. “You can put that towards anything, and I’ll be proud of you, whatever you do.”
My heart swelled and I looked away. I hadn’t told him I held my pilot’s license in retaliation for his disowning me. I wasn’t ready to tell him just yet. “Thanks for helping with the paperwork.”
The thought of going home was horrid, but at least the money was a bonus. I could put it toward my license and be finished all the more quicker. Then I’d leave and Liam would never find me. God, that really pissed me off. What if I wanted to find him? Everything he’d done was so unfair. He’d made me powerless.
Ignoring the hole where my heart used to be, I smiled at my father.
He patted my hand and sighed. “I’m just so happy you’re safe, Nina.”
* * * * *
Three days later I was stiff and achy, but after a thorough investigation by Doctor Ali’tasi, I was cleared to go home. My father and I had started the tentative relationship of being friendly again and he’d decided to stay for another week, so I was flying home with Joslyn.
The hospital shuttle dropped me off at the airport with an emergency travel document, as my belongings and passport had been incinerated in the blaze. I had nothing to my name. Even the baggy jeans and ugly paisley shirt I wore weren’t mine.
I sat in the departure lounge, staring at nothing. My back was ramrod straight and my whiplash was only a twinge.
My thoughts had nothing to keep them occupied, and Liam kept popping in to pour salt on my shredded heart. Images of him kissing me in the waterfall; the exhilaration of flying together; the whispered “I’m yours” when we slept together for the first and only time. I groaned, staring at the ceiling. That was the thing I struggled with most—we’d never actually slept together. God, did I have orgasms in real life? Could people do that? Have wet dreams in comas?
My eyes scanned the departure lounge, looking for Joslyn. She said she’d meet me at the airport, but had yet to show. What she was doing that was so imp
ortant she might miss her flight home, I didn’t know. If it was anything to do with Liam and she didn’t tell me, I’d string her up with her hickey-hiding scarf.
Just as the call for our flight came over the speakers, Joslyn hobbled around the corner. Her cheeks glowed pink from exertion using crutches, and she looked odd with a pair of baggy cargo shorts, cut wide for her cast. The stitches in her forehead had been removed and she gave me a weary smile. “Sorry I’m late. Took longer than I thought.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What took longer than you thought?” We ambled to the gate to wait in line to board. I looked behind me to the seat, my hands unused to not having a bag or something to carry. I hated not having anything that was mine, it was an eerie sense of not knowing who I was—I owned nothing—nothing defined me.
She handed over her ticket as we were hustled down the air bridge. “Nothing. Just wanted to say goodbye to a few people.”
My heart thudded. “A few people being Liam?”
Her eyebrows flew into her hair. “Girl, if I knew where that cowardly brother of mine had bolted to, I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d be tracking him down and dragging him kicking and screaming home. He’s left Mum in a right state leaving like that. Dad said he got an email telling them not to worry, but hell, that boy needs a punch in the face.”
A small smile tugged my lips. At least we saw eye to eye on that. “You’d tell me… if you knew where he’d gone?” My voice barely hid the emotional roller coaster I was on.
Joslyn rolled her eyes. “The minute I know, I’ll tell you. I personally want to be there when you lace into him. And if it stops you worrying, I was saying goodbye to Nikolai.”
My ears pricked at her tone. Oh no, she wasn’t interested in him, was she? Before I could worry, unhappiness slammed into me again. Jos thought I’d see Liam soon. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t holding my breath on that happening. If what the doctor said was true, the twenty percent chance he might heal and come back to me were slim. I couldn’t wait around pining for him. I’d go insane. The only way my heart would mend, and I could continue living with the gaping cannonball-sized hole in my chest, was to let Liam go. Just like he let me go.
Joslyn stepped over the lip of the air bridge and onto the plane.
I followed and the moment my foot touched the carpeted aisle, my world imploded into a flashback.
Flames.
Hot.
Gusty.
Time warped, and I hurtled back to the crash, reliving everything in minute detail.
A sonorous boom tore through the air, smashing into my eardrums with the force of a fist.
Fuck!
The plane bucked and shuddered as shrieking metal and thundering pandemonium hammered the cabin.
The plane jerked, bucked, and yawed.
I took a deep breath. Then my stomach was left at ten thousand feet as we nosedived.
My flashback was interrupted by a passenger jostling behind me. I moved forward, following the procession onboard. The moment I took my seat, it continued, sucking me into the past my mind had tried to forget.
I fast forwarded through talking to Anderson and Liam on the inflight phone, dealing with scared passengers. And just when I thought I remembered everything, that my stint in a hospital was a crazy mistake, my brain unlocked what really happened.
We soared lower and lower to the sparkling teal ocean.
The split moment before we touched down, I took a deep breath and held it. Gripping my harness over my breasts, I closed my eyes.
The plane shattered against tarmac—the teeth-clenching metallic screech scraped along my bones. We bounced into the sky again, and my harness unlocked. I flew to the ceiling with the bucking of the plane, my neck crumbled, and I splatted against the aircraft floor.
Pain. Unbearable, unimaginable pain jack-knifed down my spine. My vision turned grey as adrenaline tried to suck me under to stop dealing with the agony.
The metallic screeching kept getting louder. We bounced and kangarooed down the runway till a wing tip connected with tarmac.
I screamed as Joslyn landed on top of me. Her panicked voice right in my ear as the entire aircraft’s wing grated itself on the runway. Then, in a bone-jolting snap, the wing broke, sending us careening to the left.
I tried to move, to check if Joslyn was okay. To do something. Anything. But nothing obeyed. My legs were no longer operational, and my neck bellowed as if it was in three pieces.
Our speed didn’t diminish as we shot forward, fishtailing, and shrieking. The plane moaned and groaned, rivets popped from panels, metal buckled and warped.
Then the explosion happened.
The engine, now exposed to the runway from the broken wing, sparked and ignited. It was as if one thousand sticks of dynamite detonated beside my ear.
The metal fuselage of the aircraft sliced to shreds like silk. Missiles of pieces of engine and wing catapulted into the cabin. Passengers’ screams intensified as people were caught in the crossfires of shards and nightmare.
I couldn’t move as heat billowed. The side of the plane showed licking, angry flames. Like a dragon wanted to toast us to chards.
Oh God, no.
The people by the window were engulfed with glowing flames of hell. Screams turned into souls escaping through throats, twisting my insides in horror.
Something whistled through the air and slammed into my head.
The memory shattered by Joslyn shaking my shoulder. “Nina. Wake up. Shit, you’re shaking like a vibrator. Nina!?”
I blinked, leaving the hell of watching people burn alive. I blinked again, shaking, shuddering. How did I block that out? How did I forget something so traumatic? What knocked me out? The shrapnel?
“You okay? You look like you’ve seen my naked Aunt Beatrice doing star jumps.” Joslyn peered deep into my eyes. “Perhaps the hospital shouldn’t have discharged you so early? Do you want to go back?”
Back? No way. I doubted I could move even if I wanted to. I shook my head. “No. I’m okay.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” She laid a soft hand on my forearm.
I shook my head again. “No. Not really. Wait…Did anything happen to you when you stepped on the plane?”
Joslyn frowned, then her eyes clouded and she sighed. “Oh, I know what happened. You remembered. Didn’t you?”
It was the first time I saw any residual fear or horror in Joslyn’s eyes. She seemed so put together and unaffected.
I shuddered. “Do you remember?”
“All of it. For a while I was jealous of you and Liam, the doctor said you’d most likely never remember the trauma. Every time I close my eyes I see the flames, smell the acrid stench of skin and polyester burning.” Her voice haunted me. “I’ll never forget.”
My throat clogged and I looked out the window. I’d never been a nervous flyer, but the jerk when we pushed back from the air bridge filled my stomach with lead. What if we crashed again?
Joslyn stole my hand, grasping it tight in her clammy one. “You scared?”
I went to shake my head, but honesty made me nod.
“Me, too.”
* * * * *
Two weeks later, I eventually ventured out of my apartment.
My injuries from the crash had faded, but every organ in my chest hurt like I was a voodoo doll and someone stabbed pins through me. The loss of Liam muddled me and turned me into something I never wanted to be, heartsick.
Dream-Samoa and Liam morphed more and more into fable every day that passed, and I struggled to get up in the mornings. Every moment was an effort, not because I’d sampled something so bright and dazzling as what I’d had in Samoa, but because I let myself become terrified of the one thing that made me, me. As much as I hated to admit it, I understood Liam and his choice for leaving, no matter how much it hurt to be unwanted. He left to confront his demons—his lost memories and freedom. I’d lost my freedom by letting fear shackle me to the ground.
Ever sinc
e the plane ride home, I avoided the airport. Work had tried to coax me into doing a light shift, but I couldn’t stomach the thought. I didn’t want to risk my life in something as fickle as a metal tin can that could kill me if gravity decided to pluck it from the sky.
I’d even refused to see Joslyn. She reminded me too much of Liam.
In fact, the only company I could stomach were the two terrapins who lived in a large aquatic tank in my sparsely furnished lounge. And my father. We’d had lunch a few times and it was nice to have him back in my life, but I needed time on my own. Yet another thing I had in common with Liam. Space. I couldn’t stand the thought of having people hover, asking me if I were okay. Did I need counselling? What was I going to do for a job? My life turned from promise to dismal the moment the flashback had stolen my will to fly. Dancing no longer gave me a reprieve either…nothing worked.
And I hadn’t heard a word from the pilot who ran away with my heart.
My breath came sharp and fast as I clutched the steering wheel of my Honda Civic. The aeroclub beckoned with memories of fun and excitement. The scent of air fuel permeated the atmosphere and the thrill of flying zapped me briefly before being smothered in terror.
I tried to recall the awesome experience of flying with Liam in Samoa, but I didn’t trust my emotions anymore. It wasn’t real. Crap, it wasn’t real enough to keep Liam by my side even when I desperately required his help. If he hadn’t left me would I be such a mess? Was I that weak that I couldn’t get over the crash on my own? Yes, it happened, but I survived. I survived dang namit! And I’m letting life suck me dry.
I fiddled with my keys, warring with myself to turn the car on and leave, but I couldn’t. I sat there for who knows how long, memorized by the small planes taking off, overshadowed by Jumbos on the larger runway next door.
A rap on my window scared me shitless. My hand flew to my throat and a flash of whiplash made me wince. “Theo?”
His smiling thirty-something weathered face, grinned through the glass. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you, Poppins.” He unlatched my door handle, green eyes flying to mine when he found them locked. “Open the damn door. Don’t make me break it.”