And I meant it. I still do. But that left only one other place in the world for me. So, I called the recruiter back, purchased the list of gear he forwarded, and that was that.
“Preparing for landing.” The captain’s voice sounds over the intercom.
Somehow an hour slipped by in what felt like minutes.
There’s pressure on my right side that wasn’t there before. Brown locks drape my neck in a scarf. I can’t see her face but feel the rise and fall of her breath.
She’s still sleeping.
The fasten seat belt signs chime on, and she jolts to an upright position. There must be some kind of product in her hair, because it’s fixed in a giant wave on one side. A line runs across her cheek from a wrinkle in my T-shirt. Her lashes fan with each rapid blink as she takes in the scene. Then she covers them with her hands and groans.
“I fell asleep on you.”
“Now what would make you think that?”
“Because you were… and I…” Her hands mime the way each of us were sitting until she freezes.
She mats her hair down with her palms as the plane floats into a dense pocket of clouds.
The turbulence bumps everyone forward and on instinct, my arm swings out wide.
The moment I touch her, my brain registers how much better off I’d have been letting her head find a home against the seat in front of her rather than her breast in the palm of my hand. I yank it away like it caught fire.
I didnotjust graze her boob. What has happened to me on this flight?
Her head swings my direction and she glares at me.
She thinks I did it on purpose.
I don’t know what it would take to convince this woman I’m not like that. But the fact that this plane is landing… I’m out of time to plead my case.
“I’m sorry,” I say anyway.
The second the seat belt sign turns off she reaches for her phone. I’ve got a few inches on her, so it’s not hard to see when the screen lights up. I’m trying not to be nosy, but there’s no mistaking a guy’s name on that text banner.
She must be seeing someone.
Someone who doesn’t want to be seeing her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HAILEY
14 years old
The screen door slams. I meant to catch it with my hand but I’m too frustrated to slow my pace. I made stupid small talk while he finished loading his truck and then, like the sad case I am, I watched him pull away on his little adventure without me. The sting of that reality burns under my skin.
Aunt Karen flinches at the sound and sits up on the couch. She freezes the screen on Phoebe Buffay’s scrunched-up face as she’s hitting the chorus of “Smelly Cat.”
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
No!I want to scream. Everything is not okay. I don’t know where I belong in this world anymore.
How do you explain wanting to give someone the kind of energy they don’t deserve?
“I’m fine,” I mumble, pushing my way down the hall as fast as possible.
I flop on my bed, my arms splayed out wide, and try to catch the uneven breaths forcing their way out of my chest.
