The Day the Jerk Started Falling (Jerk #2)

by Max Monroe

  As a result, I provided a demonstration for the entire flight of what a true mental breakdown looks like, and I’m pretty sure I heard a grad student say he finally had the topic for his dissertation when I was being carted off the plane by security.

  Here is a woman with a mental breakdown.

  See her crazy eyes?

  See the way she just keeps shouting the same line over and over again?

  See the way she appears to be completely unaware of her surroundings?

  Yes, students, this is a classic case of a breakdown…

  At least someone got something positive out of it. Because it sure as hell fucked me.

  I feel bad about freaking out my fellow passengers and the flight attendants, but given the circumstances, I’m mostly focused on me. Me and Ollie, and saying whatever the fuck I have to say to get out of here and on my way to him.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” I apologize profusely. “Like, so, so, so sorry I behaved that way on the plane. I’m sorry I freaked everyone out. I just really need to get to Paris…”

  “But your flight is supposed to go to Bordeaux,” the female officer states, and I inhale a shaky breath.

  At this point, my nerves are really starting to get the best of me.

  My hands are shaking like leaves. My knees won’t stop bouncing. And I’m silently wondering if I’m going to end up in some kind of Swiss prison with red jumpsuits. Prison sounds like a bit of a stretch, but trust me, red is not my color.

  “I know,” I respond. “That was the original itinerary, but there’s been a change in plans.”

  “A change in plans?” she questions, and I nod.

  “Yes, it’s well…it’s a long story. But my plans changed. And I need to go to Paris. Like, right now.”

  “Do you have any history of mental illness, miss?” the male officer by the computer asks, and his firm voice bounces off the wall of the claustrophobic interrogation room and slaps me right in the face.

  First, drugs and bombs, and now, they think I’m certifiable.

  This isn’t good.

  Fuck. I just need to explain to them what’s going on.

  Surely, they’ll understand…right?

  “Listen, I’m just a normal American girl. I swear, I’m not crazy. No history of mental illness. I’m not trying to do anything illegal. I’m just trying to get to Paris.”

  “What’s in Paris?” the officer with the latex gloves asks as he continues to go through my belongings.

  “Ollie Arsen.”

  He quirks a brow. “Is that a street name for a drug?”

  I laugh, even though it’s probably not the best idea. “No. He’s an Australian surfer, and I love him.”

  God, I really do sound crazy. It’s no wonder they pulled me aside for interrogation.

  The man pulls my cell phone out of my purse, turns it back on, and holds it out for me.

  “Type in your passcode,” he demands, and I don’t even question it.

  I tap in my passcode.

  Surely, the only things he’ll find inside that phone are one too many bad selfies and work emails.

  The instant the phone comes to life, I see notification after notification scroll across the screen. All missed calls and text messages from Allie from what I can tell, before he snatches the phone away from my eyes and starts going through it.

  “Do you know him?” he asks, and I scrunch my nose up.

  “Who?”

  “Oliver Arsen.”

  Oh.

  “Yes, of course, I know him,” I say and promptly add, “and yes, he knows me too.” Just in case they start wondering if I’m, like, some crazed fangirl trying to stalk him or something.

  “And he’s the reason you’re trying to get to Paris?”

  Dear God. How many times do I have to explain this?

  “Yes. He’s the reason.”

  “Mind explaining what a famous Australian surfer has to do with Paris, miss?” the female officer asks, and I can’t help but sigh.

  “If I don’t get to Paris, I might lose the only chance I’ll ever have of being good at love.”

  “You’re going to Paris to find love?”

  “No… Well, yes… Sort of… I’m going to Paris to find Oliver Arsen and tell him how I feel.”

  “And this is why you caused a near-panic situation on your flight?”

  I nod manically. “Yes. Which I know is no excuse, but it’s one hundred percent the truth.”

  “And you just up and decided all of this midflight?”

  “Yes. But, in my defense, I didn’t get to hear the last episode of his podcast until I was midflight.”

  They all stare at me like I’m high and full of shit.

  Fuck.

  The man with latex gloves sets my carry-on and purse on the floor and lets the drug-sniffing dog walk around my belongings. Again.

  I have the urge to pet him, but I decide that might not play well in my favor.

  Plus, he is, like, on the job and already despises me for not providing him with an illegal reason to be in this room. Unless he can sniff out emergency tampons and trail mix, momma still ain’t got nothing inside those bags that would be of interest to him.

  To no surprise, the canine appears unimpressed again and eventually just moves to the other side of the room, sits down, and kind of glares at me.

  One quick call over their radios, and another security officer steps inside the room to escort the dog back out.

  Once the dog leaves, more rapid-fire questions are shot my way.

  Where am I from?

  What is my job?

  More questions about my mental health.

  More questions about illegal activity.

  More questions about their fucking questions.

  And all I can do is sit here, watching the time tick away on the big clock sitting on the wall near the computer.

  The damn thing taunts me. The second hand races past each number, and I just want to yell out “Slow the fuck down!”

  But I don’t do that, obviously, and the seconds turn to minutes, and the minutes turn to hours.

  All the while, I’m losing my ever-loving mind.

  Silently, of course. Because, yeah, I learned my lesson with the whole “I need to get off the plane!” outburst.

  But, still. Time is fading away.

  I’ve already missed my flight to Bordeaux.

  And I need to be in Paris.

  I have to get to Ollie.

  * * *

  Ollie

  At just after two in the afternoon on Decision Day, the suit bag with my newly tailored outfit of woo draped over my shoulder and a guy twice my size—at least width wise—at my back, I step out of the back door of Scavini Tailleur and directly into the waiting car.

  I’ve been to the flower market, a shop for candles, met with a fucking wedding planner of all things to aid in overall organization—seamlessly left in a subject-less email from Zoe this morning—and arranged for a string quartet to meet me at the Eiffel Tower precisely one hour before dark.

  When I woke up this morning, at the ungodly hour of the sun doesn’t even exist yet, I’d been eager to get everything done as quickly as possible, get ready, and get waiting.

  I’ll sit by the Eiffel Tower all day, I thought naïvely. Live in the anticipation. Hang out on the grassy lounges below, gaze into the Seine, have a crepe from a vendor, and enjoy the scenery.

  Of course, all it’d taken was a drive by the Eiffel Tower by my driver to determine my fancy little plan was an absolute impossibility.

  Hundreds of members of the press were already there, herded into a group and strung up behind a rope barrier by the police, and their interest had drummed up even more from tourists.

  So, the driver points the car toward the hotel at my direction, and back to confinement I go.

  I know people consider Paris the city of love, but for my circumstances, today, it feels a little like hell.

  Despite the potential in the ai
r, the opposite is just as potent, and the concrete doesn’t do anything to soothe my nerves like the waves.

  I don’t know why I didn’t choose somewhere with a fucking ocean for this whole thing, but I’ll be scolding myself about it for the rest of my life, I’m sure.

  “Nowhere else, sir?” the driver asks to confirm, his French accent making the words curl.

  I shake my head and sigh, even start to say no, when it hits me.

  Inspiration.

  “You know what?” I say, going back on my decision. “There is one more thing I need to do.”

  A quick description of specifics and we’re on our way.

  He knows just the place to go.

  Books spill out onto the sidewalk in boxes and on top of tables as we pull up in front of an alley that leads down to The Abbey Bookshop.

  My security guard opens the door and climbs out, and I shuffle across the black leather seat to follow. He shuts the door after I’m out and takes up a step behind me when I turn back and stop.

  “You know what? I think I can go this one alone.”

  He surveys the empty street and alley with careful care before double-checking. “You sure?”

  “I am,” I affirm. There aren’t any crowds of paparazzi that I can see, and I doubt I’ll bump into any in the store.

  Something about Lucky’s love of vintage, literature, and shopping for the best finds with her mum makes this feel like an activity best done alone.

  With a jerk of his head, he climbs back into the car to be less conspicuous, and I make my way across the paver street to the alley and down it.

  Just as I saw from the car, the tiny store isn’t nearly big enough to accommodate the bevy of spined words and patrons, and as a result, they’re using just as much outdoor space as they are indoor.

  I scan the contents of the sidewalk, but for the sake of safety, step inside the wooden doorway and into the narrow paths carved out between shelves.

  Hundreds of thousands of millions of words live here, and I’m overwhelmed by the people behind them.

  People like Lucky, with a gift and a vision for crafting them into heartfelt stories of love, loss, misfortune, and magic.

  It’s overwhelming at first, but the farther I dig into the stacks of the truly old stuff, the easier it becomes.

  Love stories abound, the covers cracked and worn in much the way I imagine ours would be, and I treat each of them with the care I hope Lucky uses with me.

  There’s hope in the pages, and there’s hope in my heart.

  Hope that I’ll find the right book, that we’ll find our happy ending, and that she’ll meet me under the Eiffel Tower tonight.

  A weathered copy of Pride and Prejudice winks from the shelf, and I take it in my hands.

  Inside is the answer.

  The one I knew, but now I know better. Stronger. More fervently.

  I love Luciana Wright, and she has to let me tell her.

  “My feelings will not be repressed.

  You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

  * * *

  Lucky

  By the time they release me, it’s nearing three in the afternoon.

  After several hours in the interrogation room and another hour of them giving me a good talking-to, they send me off with nothing but a warning. My passport is stamped, and I’m officially out of customs and in Zurich.

  And thankfully, I’m not put on some kind of no-fly list.

  Most likely because once I was able to find the words to fully explain the gist of my podcast situation, they were able to pull up both Ollie’s and my episodes on their computers.

  I honestly thought my initial experience in Switzerland wouldn’t have been so damn dramatic. But that obviously has nothing to do with the Swiss and everything to do with me and my crazy fucking outburst on the plane.

  My sister Hazel will threaten to kill me if she finds out about my little mêlée with Zurich’s airport security.

  Willow will probably just laugh.

  And my dad, well, he probably won’t be all that surprised. Even as a kid, I always tended to have a flair for emotional theatrics.

  But drama aside, I need to figure out how in the hell I’m going to get to Paris.

  My flight to Bordeaux is long gone, along with my fucking suitcases.

  All I’ve got is my purse and my carry-on, which basically means I have my wallet, my tablet, my laptop, and zero fucking clothes.

  But I don’t have time to worry about the fact that I’m strolling around in yoga pants and a sweatshirt. I need to figure out how I’m going to get to Paris by tonight.

  And so far, trains and planes are not an option.

  There are no more available flights or rides until tomorrow morning.

  Not to mention, the one train ride that was available, left two minutes before I made it to the ticket counter.

  As I walk past baggage claim and toward the exit doors, I pull my phone out of my purse and call Allie.

  She answers on the first ring.

  “Oh my God! Where are you!” she shouts into my ear, and I have to pull my phone away just slightly to prevent my eardrum from bursting. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you!”

  “I know,” I say on a sigh. “Trust me, I know. And I’m in Zurich.”

  “You’re in Zurich? As in, fucking Switzerland? What in the hell are you doing there?”

  “Well, my flight to Bordeaux had a layover here, and I kind of had an outburst on the plane and got detained for a few hours. My flight is gone. My luggage is also gone with that damn flight, and I—”

  “Hold up…what? You got detained!” she asks—well, more like shouts. “What is going on, Lucky?”

  “I listened to the podcast,” I explain. “And, well, when I heard the last episode, I was on my flight, about an hour away from my first stop in Zurich.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes,” I retort. “And I kind of freaked out and told them I needed to get off the plane, and let’s just say, never do that. Never ever say you need to get off the plane in the middle of the flight. They don’t appreciate that. At all.”

  “Wait…so you want to be in Paris?”

  My answer is a whisper, but the words don’t falter for even a moment. “I want to be in Paris.”

  “Oh. My. God. Okay. Okay. I’m not going to freak out over this right now and start rambling about how I sort of kind of feel like my best friend is going to end up being my sister-in-law,” she mutters more to herself than to me. “Okay. Focus, Allie. What time is it right now?”

  “A little after five.”

  “Bloody hell! You’re running out of time!”

  “I know,” I say and try to inhale a deep and steady breath to calm down my already racing heart. “Trust me, I know.”

  “What about a flight to Paris? Did you check for that?”

  “Earliest flight isn’t until tomorrow evening. The rest are sold out.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know.”

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she mutters. “Planes…trains… What about a train? Did you check for a train?” she questions, and her words are coming out a mile a minute at this point. She’s obviously feeling the time crunch just as hard as I am.

  “Same. I missed the last available train by two fucking minutes,” I say, and then my eyes catch sight of the car rental desk just before the exit doors, and I stop. “Wait. I think I’ve found an option. I can rent a car.”

  “You’re going to drive from Zurich to Paris?” she questions, and her skeptic’s voice does not go unnoticed on my end.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You’re a horrible driver, Lucky.”

  “It’s literally my only option, Allie!” It’s my turn to shout now. “I know I’m shit at driving, but fucking hell, I need to get to Paris, and this seems like the only way. I love him, Allie,” I say and head to the rental car desk. “I love him, and I need to get to him.”

  She sighs and t
hen laughs. “I can’t believe you fell in love with my brother.”

  “I get that, really, I do. And I’m a little bit sorry for that, but right now, I need you to focus on getting ahold of Ollie while I try to convince the lady behind the rental car desk that I’m a good driver and she should let me rent a vehicle for a five-or six-hour road trip to Paris.”

  “Okay. Okay,” Allie agrees. “I’ll try to get ahold of him. But what do you want me to tell him?”

  “Tell him to wait for me.”

  Her responding dreamy sigh bounces around inside the receiver of the phone. “I really want to talk about how romantic this is right now, but I’m going to bite my tongue and save that for later.”

  “Good idea,” I say through a soft laugh. “Okay. You call Ollie. I’ll call you back here in a bit. Hopefully, when I’m actually in a car and headed for Paris.”

  I hang up the phone and head to the desk.

  The woman behind it luckily speaks English, and I proceed to give her every piece of documentation I have on hand. Twenty minutes and what feels like a lot of convincing later, I have the keys in my hand, and I’m standing in front of what must be Europe’s version of a clown car.

  Cue the fucking circus music.

  It’s bright red and so fucking tiny I can’t imagine a grown man being able to fit inside. Not to mention, it’s a stick shift. I don’t really know how to drive a manual, but I told the lady behind the desk I can because, apparently, it’s all they had in stock.

  I offer up a prayer to the heavens and toss my shit into the front seat.

  The engine turns easily enough, but it takes me a good ten minutes to figure out how to work the clutch.

  By the time I drive out of the rental car parking lot, I’m sweating, my heart is racing, my hands are shaking, and I’ve already stalled the damn thing seven times.

  I realize about fifteen minutes into my drive that I can’t call Allie back unless I pull over somewhere.

  Also, not only is driving a manual transmission nearly impossible for me, driving a fucking car in a foreign country is no easy feat either. Everything is unfamiliar, and I have to keep glancing down at the GPS on my phone to make sure I’m even going the right way.