"Are you ready?"
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”
We have breakfast and get everything ready to go, my anxiety ramping up the whole time. By the time we walk out the door, I'm shaking and feel like I'm about to vomit.
It's not because I'm leaving the house, because over the course of this past year, I've slowly gotten used to that. Two months ago was the first time I left the house and realized I hadn't even thought about the fact that I was leaving—I’d just left.
These days, I can go to the grocery store or over to Chrissy’s house for dinner with no stress.
But today, we're going to an airport.
We booked the flight out of Manchester instead of Boston, so I wouldn't have to confront the city or the train yet, but it still feels like a massive step.
I blow out air in a thin stream like I'm extinguishing a candle as I lock the door.
I can do this.
I'm not going to be in any alleys or anywhere dark at any point.
We purposely booked our flight so that we would leave and arrive during the daytime.
Plus, I'll have my personal attack nightmare with me the entire time.
When I turn around, Seth sets down the suitcases he’s brought out and grabs my hand. He smiles, tugging me into his chest, and points above us.
“Mistletoe!” I gasp, because it hadn’t been there yesterday. The house is littered with the stuff, since Seth now knows it means we get to kiss, but we hadn’t bothered putting any on the porch.
“I realized that I never got to kiss you under this last year?—”
“Only because we barely left the house!” I squealed as he burrows his face in my neck.
“Well, that’s true,” he says, giving me a bit of a nip. “I don’t think I could have ever imagined this when I hung it last year. Hells, I had no idea what it was even for, nevermind that I’d be kissingyou here a year later.”
“Me neither… but I’m pretty happy about it.”
“Same. I’m proud of you, you know. I know I say it all the time, but I am.” He sweeps me off my feet and catches my lips with his.
I still get butterflies every time we kiss, and I don’t anticipate it stopping anytime soon.
“Right, then!” he says, setting me down facing the drive and smacking me on the ass. “Let’s do this!”
Seth squeezes my arms from behind and picks up our bags. They’re roller bags, but that's not going to come in handy until we're at the airport. I shipped all of our presents ahead, so we're able to travel relatively light.
As we crunch over the gravel—it still hasn't snowed—I sneak a look over at Seth. He's shifted to the human form he’s learned how to take on thanks to guidance from his flirtatious and strange friend, Rhys. We’re wearing matching black sweatsuits today, though he's still wearing his mask. He'll take it off when he needs to, but during times like this, he's really lovely about wearing it to help me stay calm, even if it makes him look like a bit of a weirdo.
My little Civic doesn't look sad anymore. In fact, now it's covered with a bunch of stickers. Band stickers, some with funny sayings, and souvenir ones from all the places that we've gone together.
You’d be surprised at how many places have stickers. There's even one from the grocery store on my car, my first. Every sticker is a win over my anxiety, large or small, and every one makes me ridiculously proud, no matter how silly they make my car look.
Seth throws the bags in the trunk and climbs into the passenger seat. We haven't quite gotten around to him learning how to drive yet. So far, our priorities have been getting me out of the house and doing the bare minimum to figure out what the heck we need for Seth to travel.
We've got his plane ticket and travel papers squared away—Rhys magicked something up for us, I try not to ask about his methods—but for now, I still do all the driving.
For the first 20 minutes or so, while we're still north of the capital, I'm able to lie to myself that we're just going into town—well, the bigger town—since my little one doesn't have any big box stores.
Once we're on the other side of the capital though… I start shaking, and Seth takes my hand. He squeezes it, kissing the back of it.
To distract me, he flips on some holiday music, singing it at the top of his lungs.
