by Avery Wilde
“Tell me, son, how long has it been since your last confession?”
“Eleven years, nine months, and six days,” I said automatically, reciting my age.
“And what are your sins, child?”
I burned bright red with shame. “I’ve embarrassed my father and mother, and I’ve been a holy terror while Mum has been sick. I haven’t helped out at home. I laughed during the sermon, during the holy word of God.”
“These are venial sins, my son,” Father O’Donohue’s calming voice replied. “Say a Hail Mary tonight and you will be cleansed the eyes of the Lord.”
A strange, disquieting calm feeling settled over me. When I left the confessional booth, I felt like a real man, like a new person in the eyes of God. So maybe that was why Mum and Dad were so keen on coming to church.
“Jay! Jay!” Connor ran up to me, holding a new toy airplane. “Mum got me this, wanna take it to the park?”
Already, my new status as a man was forgotten. I pushed through the crowd of worshippers until I found my parents.
“Mum, Dad, can I go with Connor to the park? His mum gave him an airplane, and we want to fly it all the way to the continent!”
Mum and Dad exchanged glanced. “All right, son,” Dad said gruffly. “Be home before dinner, and don’t bring Connor with you. We have a special meal planned for you.”
I never got to find out what that special meal was. I bolted out of the church with Connor, and my parents stayed behind for a few minutes to chat with the clergy. I never heard the explosion, never saw their car erupt into a flaming ball of gas….
I shook my head to clear the memory. Since that day, the day my parents were killed, I hadn’t prayed. Not once. But now, I couldn’t stop myself from praying. Please God, let her be all right…please, I’ll do anything.
The airport was a madhouse. People rushed from door to door, crying and sobbing and running with their arms flung out in front of them. I could tell everyone was tremendously upset, and I could only hear snatches of conversation like, “very few survivors” or “I heard none, did someone actually live?”
The small flame of hope that had lit in my chest during my car ride began to die. As my eyes clouded over with tears, my throat clenched up and I tightened my hand around the ring box in my pocket. Maybe I could give it to Lizzy, and she could give it to their parents. Maybe they would have wanted to know their daughter had found love.
“Jay?” A familiar and tearful voice called out my name.
My heart leapt. No. It couldn’t be. I whirled around before I could let myself think any more horrible thoughts.
Kate was standing there, clutching her suitcase.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kate
Jay was staring at me like he’d seen a ghost.
“Jesus….Kate!”
He was at my side before I could even exhale, his strong arms wrapping around me and pulling me close. I let out a deep breath—the breath it felt like I’d been holding since Jay had left—and snuggled close against his muscular torso. When I was with Jay, everything else faded away. The screaming and the shouts in the airport seemed to vanish, and I was able to feel strong, safe, and loved.
“I didn’t get on the plane,” I said softly. Jay held me at arm’s length and looked me over, his blue eyes penetrating every open pore, every surface of my skin.
“I can see that,” he said. “Christ, you have no idea how glad that makes me, Kate.”
“I couldn’t. I had to tell you something.” Suddenly, I was nervous again. It didn’t seem fair, that I’d gotten to escape death and get a second chance at life, and now I was nervous about telling Jay that I’d fallen in love with him.
Jay shifted his weight from foot to foot and grabbed me close to him, crushing me against his chest. “You can tell me from here,” he mumbled into my hair. “I’m not letting you get away for a bleeding second.”
I grinned into his chest as his hands stroked over my hair. “I love you,” I said softly. Then, louder: “I’ve fallen in love with you, Jay. Head over heels.”
He stepped back and looked into my eyes. A lick of desire shot through me and I shivered. I knew it wasn’t right or appropriate to be feeling that way, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted him—it was probably at least partially a reaction to all of the stress that I’d gone through since Jay had left this morning—but I wanted him now, more than ever.
“I love you, too,” he said. “I love you, Kate.”
We hugged again. It felt closer, more intimate this time, like we were really reacquainting ourselves with each other’s bodies. Jay smelled like soap and aftershave, and I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the masculine scent as it washed over me.
“I couldn’t get on the plane without telling you that,” I said softly. “I had to let you know. And I had to tell you in person, I didn’t want to FaceTime or tell you over the phone. It had to…it had to come right from me, does that make sense?”
He leaned back and nodded. “I am so bloody glad you felt that way,” he said, rubbing his close-cropped hair. “I had no idea what I was going to do if I lost you. I was on the phone with my mate, Connor, and he told me to turn on the TV. I half expected to see you, but when I saw the plane…” He choked on his words and covered his eyes behind his hands. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you, Kate. I couldn’t stand that at all.”
“I wish I had called you to tell you I was okay,” I said. “My phone died, I was playing with it too much before security. And then the payphones were mobbed—I think everyone had the same idea as me.”
“A call would have been nice,” he said. “But I understand. I’m glad I’m here, and I’m glad you are too.”
We stood facing each other in silence for a moment. Something had changed between us; it felt more serious, less capricious, and I knew in my gut that Jay was the man I’d be spending the rest of my life with. It was crazy…we hadn’t even known each other for a full month.
But I knew.
“I’ve never been this happy in my life,” Jay said, as if confirming everything I’d just thought to myself. “This is it for me, Kate. I can’t even tell you how scared I was at the thought of losing you,” he added, choking up slightly.
I took his hand and led him to a nearby bench where he sat with a grateful sigh. “I thought I was going to lose you forever,” he repeated. “I couldn’t go through that, not again…” Jay’s voice trailed off. “I couldn’t lose you, but especially because I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to tell you how much I love you.”
My eyes teared up as I stared at him. He was overcome with profound emotion, and it was affecting me as well. A trail of hot salty tears dripped down my cheek, and Jay reached over and laced his fingers with mine, pulling them close.
“That’s what happened with my parents,” he said softly. “I…I never got to tell them how much I loved them. It was the day of my confirmation, the day I joined the church. They wanted me to go home for supper with them but I wanted to go play with my best friend in the park. When they got in the car to leave, it exploded immediately. Someone had planted the bomb while we were all in church.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Jay’s story was heartbreaking. As much as he’d told me about the past, I’d never imagined anything quite that painful.
“Jay, they must have known how much you loved them,” I said softly. “And I bet wherever they are now, they’re very, very glad that you weren’t in the car with them that day.”
Jay didn’t reply. Instead, he pulled me into a tight, intimate hug and I closed my eyes and let him stroke my hair. All around us was chaos. The airport had bloomed into a fantastic mess of people and luggage. Adults wailed and hugged each other like toddlers, and children ran forgotten on the maroon tiled floor.
“We have to do something,” I said under my breath. “We have to help these people.”
There were two people crying and holding each other, on the floor, not twenty feet from where Jay and I
stood. They were sobbing so intensely that I could barely make out their facial features, and just watching them was enough to hurt my heart. Suddenly, I felt intensely guilty about being so selfish.
“This isn’t just about us,” I said quietly. “Come on.”
Jay followed me as I walked over to the women and knelt down to where they were kneeling. Putting on the brightest expression I could muster up in the circumstances, I reached into my bag and handed over the jumbo sized bottle of water that I’d bought for the flight.
“I think you could both use this a lot more than me,” I said, as casually as I could muster. The women broke their embrace and turned to me with red eyes and faces streaked with tears.
“Thank you,” one of them muttered before reaching forward and taking the bottle of water. She unscrewed the cap and took a long, deep drink before handing it to the other woman. After a few seconds, some of the color returned to their cheeks.
“Thank you,” the other woman said.
“Of course,” I said. “Is there anything we can help you with? Is there anyone you want us to call?”
The older of the two nodded. “My daughter,” she said. “She doesn’t know where I am, and she will fear the worst.”
I helped the woman call her daughter on Jay’s cell phone, taking the phone and explaining what had happened, then passing it back to the woman. The conversation took less than five minutes and by the time she’d hung up, the woman was crying again. But this time, I could tell, it was tears of relief and joy.
“Thank you so much,” the woman said. “Thank you, you are an angel for helping us.”
Jay had been standing off to the side and watching the whole thing, and when he rejoined me, he looked at me with clear admiration in his blue eyes. “You’re a bloody saint,” he told me. “I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to get someone like you.”
“It was the least I could do.”
We began the slow, exhausting process of moving around the airport and trying to comfort those who needed it the most. My heart broke multiple times for these people, these people who had lost a loved one, and I wished I could’ve helped to heal them all. The hardest was a boy who had watched his mother get on the plane—she was going to America to study abroad for the summer—and his father hadn’t been able to explain what happened. He was clearly still in shock, standing there listlessly while his son looked around with wide eyes, asking if his mother would ever come home now.
“They’re still looking for survivors,” I said softly to the father. “There’s a chance she made it.”
I didn’t want to give them false hope, but at the same time, hope was all we had right now, while we didn’t know what was going on.
Jay came up behind me and squatted down to the boy’s height. The boy, suddenly shy, darted behind his father. But Jay wasn’t deterred. “Hello there,” he said. “Do you like football?”
The little boy nodded, and he slowly peeked out from behind his father’s legs. His father was a young man, not much older than Jay and myself, who looked weary with grief. He watched carefully as Jay coaxed the boy out, then wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close.
“When I get sad, I play football,” Jay said. “That’s what I’ve always done.”
The boy nodded shyly, and Jay continued.
“You’re being much braver than I’ve ever been, you know that?” he said.
The boy nodded again and Jay pulled him into a surprising hug. I found myself touched as I watched their interactions; Jay was such a good man, with such a big heart that I couldn’t help a few more tears from leaking down my face.
“Promise me you’ll stay strong,” Jay said to the boy. He reached into his pocket and came back with his keys. “This is my special football keychain,” he said, fingering a Manchester United strip of red, gold, and black. “But I think you’re going to need it more than I do.”
The father seemed to have recognized Jay, and he leaned down. “You don’t need to give us anything, Mr. Walsh, but thank you for the thought,” he said softly. “You’re very kind.”
But the boy reached for the strip of fabric once Jay had separated it from his keys. “Is this really mine?”
Jay nodded. “All yours,” he said. “It’s good luck, so don’t lose it.”
A well-dressed woman carrying a microphone walked up to me. “What’s going on?” She looked at me, her eyes narrowed critically. “Is that Jay Walsh?”
I nodded. “He made a new friend,” I said as I pointed to the boy. “I think they have something in common.”
“That is so sweet. I can’t wait to get my crew over here! Wait until they see this!” the woman gushed, and it dawned on me that she must be a journalist.
Jay stood up with a frown on his face when he spotted the woman. He walked over towards us. “What’s all this?”
“You’re going to be on the news, and for once, it’s for something good!” the woman chirped excitedly. “Don’t you want all of your fans to see you helping out?”
Jay shook his head. “Don’t film me,” he said in a serious voice. “I don’t want to be known as the guy who’s doing good just to be on camera.”
“But wouldn’t this inspire your fans?”
“I’m not doing it,” Jay said in a gruff voice. “Have some damn respect for the tragedy that’s occurred here today.”
The journalist rolled her eyes and walked away in a huff, and I smiled up at Jay. I knew something now; one pure, indubitable fact.
This was definitely the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jay
Even though I felt like dropping down on my knees in the exact second when I saw that Kate was alive, I knew that it wasn’t the right time for a proposal. Not by a long shot. With the plane crash and multitude of people thought to be dead, it would have been an utterly selfish, jackass move to propose. And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t think Kate would want a big, public proposal. She was poised and outgoing, but I knew that she didn’t like being a spectacle.
It just wasn’t the right time.
By the time we left the airport, we were both exhausted. I was starving, but I felt guilty about being so hungry. All of those people grieving probably weren’t thinking about food, and I felt like I shouldn’t be, either. But after my stomach grumbled more than once when we were in the car, Kate turned to me.
“You don’t have to beat yourself up, you know,” she said softly. “We can get something to eat. I’m hungry, too.”
Without replying, I drove us towards that little Chinese food stall where we’d had one of our first conversations. Kate gave me a watery smile when I pulled up, but she didn’t say anything.
“I’ll slide out and pick us up some food, and then we can take it home to eat, sound good?” I said.
Kate nodded. “I wish I knew why I felt so tired,” she said softly. “I feel like I just ran a marathon.”
I’d had a game scheduled for later in the day, but I had to call my coach and tell him that I would be missing it. I’d never missed a match, not even for the most foul of hangovers, but today was something different. When I told my coach a short version of what had happened, he let me off the hook, scot free.
I loaded up with a variety of wontons, fried chicken, and vegetable dishes before heading back to the car, and Kate smiled when I slid behind the driver’s seat. It already felt final, like she was back for good.
“What are you going to do?”
Kate pursed her lips. “I’m not sure,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I should do. I emailed my producers and told them about what happened, and I don’t know if I’ll have to get on a plane to go back home or not.” She shuddered. “I hate the idea of flying right now, it seems so awful.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said as I reached over the seat and gripped her pale fingers in my own. “I don’t blame you at all. After what happened to my parents, I couldn’t get in a car
for a year.”
“I’m so sorry about that, Jay,” she said, looking at me with pain in her eyes.
I nodded. “It was a bad time. But I’m glad I can talk to you about it. Thank you…for listening to me.”
“Always.”
We drove back to my flat in silence until Kate let out a strangled cry.
“Oh my god, Lizzy!” she said. “I totally forgot to call her! She’s probably a wreck.”
I widened my eyes. I’d been terrified earlier that Kate was dead, and I couldn’t imagine how fearful her sister had been. Even though Kate and Lizzy looked like opposites, I knew their sisterly bond ran deep.
“You’d better call her,” I said. “You know how she’s prone to overreacting.”
Kate nodded. It was the most normal interaction we’d had since I arrived back at the airport and saw her amazingly, stunningly alive.
“Lizzy, it’s me,” Kate said a moment later, presumably to Lizzy’s voicemail. “You’re probably in class right now, but I just wanted to let you know I’m okay. There was a plane crash, the plane I was supposed to take crashed into another plane as it was landing. Something about bad weather preventing visibility. But I didn’t get on the plane, and I’m not going back to the States.” Our eyes met and Kate’s cheeks colored. “At least not right now,” she added. “Call me. Love you.”
When Kate had hung up, she let out a deep sigh and reclined against the headrest. “It feels good to be here, with you,” she said softly. “I was dreading leaving, you know.”
I nodded. “I’m not playing in the game later,” I said. “I called my coach while you were getting some things together. He understood, but it’s probably a one-time-only exception.”
Kate let out a dry laugh. “The fans of Manchester United are going to kill me,” she said lightly. “For keeping their precious Jay Walsh from them.”
I grinned broadly. “You can keep me from whomever you’d like,” I said with a wink. “Just as long as I get a snog every so often.”