Maybe it’s that my idea of a decent human being is someone who makes sure everyone around them is okay. So, when I catch the tremor of her fingertips on her thighs and her breath scraping past her lips, I want to help her. Regardless of whether or not I let myself experience similar feelings. I move fast through life on purpose. It drowns out the noise. Which gives me an idea…
“Electric boobs, below her shoes.” I sing off-key into the open air, voice bellowing over the tops of the seats.
The gust of air she pulls into her lungs at the sound of my voice holds on a gasp. Her eyes dart around the cabin to see if anyone else heard me. Then she leans over and whisper-shouts, “What are you doing?”
The edges of my mouth tick up in a smile. “I’m sorry. Is this embarrassing you?” I peek past her down the aisle. As I suspected, my dad is wearing his gray noise-canceling headphones. His head is not one of the many that turn my way.
Her big brown eyes gape up at me. “Stop!” she begs, tugging on my arm.
But I can’t. Her hands are still shaking, and my job here is not done yet.
Positioned pretty close to the middle of the plane, I karaoke the next line of “Bennie and the Jets” through the entire cabin. “You know I read it in a wagon seat…” My voice pitches on that last word like the first syllable a donkey makes, and a deep crimson explodes across her cheeks.
She giggles. The most lighthearted sound. And I don’t know what the hell she read on her phone a minute ago, but the way she’s looking at me now—like Katherine Heigl looked at James Marsden in27 Dresseswhen this song came on—tells me she has long since forgotten it.
“Did I not tell you I’m a rom-com lover? I can go all day,” I tell her. And I mean it.
If it guarantees that she’ll look at me the way she is right now, face flushed, eyes dancing. Letting me see all of her. I like it a little too much. In fact, I want tokeepfocusing on our intoxicating exchange, but it’s difficult to do when she smells like a summer candle—something citrusy grounded in vanilla.
I continue with the chorus when a high-pitched humming sound competes with my voice.
The plane rises and dips like the drop in a roller-coaster as the wheels lift off the ground.
Her eyes flit to the eighteen-inch window, watching as we climb toward the sky. I press against the back of my seat so she has a good view. She watches the city dwarf into a patchwork quilt of earthy tones. The push and pull of her breath steadies as we drift away into a sea of translucent cotton balls.
When she finally drags her eyes away from the window, she whispers, “Thank you for that.”
I shrug. “For what?”
She tilts her head and smiles knowingly. “Listen, I don’t want to be rude… especially after what you did for me just now. But I got like three hours of sleep last night.”
“No. I’m terrible company. I get it.”
She grips my forearm, and I catch myself wondering what it would feel like if her fingertips slid down my wrist and across my palm. It’s been a long time since I held a woman’s hand.
“It’s not like that, I promise!” She notices my smirk, and her palm falls away. “You’re joking.”
I nod, wondering if she’s usually this easy to rile up.
She huffs and relaxes into her seat. Her head tips back, rocking from side to side until she finds a comfortable position against the headrest. Three minutes later, she’s fast asleep. Right about the time I realize I miss her company.
You wanted this. A seventy-five-minute plane ride without anyone breathing down my neck.
I fish around for those headphones one more time, only to remember last seeing them in a coiled heap on my dresser. Right where I should have left that pocketknife.
Without someone to talk to or music to listen to, with nowhere to go and nothing to do to drown out the thoughts in my head, the words in that letter come crawling to the surface.
The truth is, as much as I joked that Miles wasn’t any good at them, I’ve never been great at goodbyes either. The thought of never seeing either one of you again hurts too much. It was easier just to pack my bags early and move forward with what comes next.
And that’s exactly what I’m doing, I remind myself.
Three days ago, a recruiter called me with an opening on a hand crew out of the Payette National Forest. They lost a member mid-season to a leg injury and needed an immediate replacement. I had twenty-four hours to decide and even less time to leave Bear Lake to pack my bags. It wasalmostthe most difficult decision I had to make.
Letting Teddy Fletcher go was the worst of them all. I was falling in love with her all over again—the girl with the constellation of freckles I thought mapped my future. The one I spent five perfect summers with.
She was dancing in my arms at my parents’ end of summer soiree one minute and walking away the next. And the sad thing is, I would have stayed for her… changed the trajectory of my life. But she decided for me. She picked Miles.
I hope you are off on wild adventures together, I wrote.You deserve it.
