“It’s not one my therapist recommends. But my dads refuse to come to an appointment with me. Probably because they know she’s going to tell them that,” Este says with a shrug. “I’m trying, though. To talk about it. To say it out loud. It’s easier in my head. My therapist says that’s because I don’t have to worry about upsetting anyone else when I say it in my head.”
I stay silent, giving her the space to decide if and how she wants to say it.
“I was in a plane crash. Last year. That’s how I got the scar on my face. Why I don’t fly anymore.”
My heart sinks. Jesus.
She sounds measured, rehearsed, like she’s spent time practicing saying it. If she’s in therapy, she probably has. It’s one of the many therapy techniques I tried and gave up on.
“God. That’s… I’m so sorry, angel.” I don’t mean to call her that. It slipped out when she was having her nightmare, and it slides off my tongue again with ease. Whether I mean it or not, it suits her, and she doesn’t seem to mind. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
She nods but hesitates. I see her glance sideways at my chest, and I lift my arm around her shoulder, offering her the option to lean against me. It’s easier to talk about shit when people can’t see your face. She lies against me and breathes out some of the tension in her shoulders.
“It was the Monday after Thanksgiving, and we were flying from New Orleans to Portland. I was flying with my favorite captain, Paul. Some captains don’t like flying with me, either because I’m young, a woman, or because of who my family is, but not Paul. He was the first captain I ever flew with, and always good to me. He wasn’t feeling great that day. Said he’d had too much to eat over Thanksgiving and had indigestion. I offered to be the PM—pilot monitoring, the one who keeps an eye on everything and communicates with air traffic control—which meant he had to handle takeoff and landing, but otherwise, he could take it easy while we were cruising. It was a perfect day, so he didn’t have to stress. He was usually chatty, but he was quiet that day.
“There was an engine failure when we were flying over Denver. It was a compressor issue, and it caused all sorts ofmalfunctions in the cockpit, including autopilot. I thought Paul had fallen asleep, but…” She trails off, sniffing. Shit. I rub my hand up and down her arm, trying to comfort her.
“I panicked. It took me longer than it should have to get my shit together. I had to do a manual engine restart and adj—the logistics don’t matter. Long story short, I did an emergency landing in a field somewhere outside of Denver. It was a rough landing, but the passengers were all okay beyond a few minor injuries. I had whiplash, a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, and I needed a few stitches in my face, but I was okay. Paul… We found out later that it was a heart attack. He just drifted away.” Her voice cracks. “If I’d noticed?—”
“You couldn’t have done anything. If it was that quick, you wouldn’t have been able to get him to the ground on time, angel,” I say gently.
“True. But I’ll always wonder ‘what if.’”
“Is that what your nightmares are about?”
“Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes I re-live the crash in detail—I remember it all—but I get something wrong, and the passengers die. Sometimes I die. Sometimes it happens exactly how it did, we all survive, and I end up feeling exactly like this. No matter the ending, it hurts like hell.”
“What was tonight?”
She pulls back enough that I can see her face. Her eyes are watery, but she looks more clearheaded than she did when she first stopped crying. “You woke me up before I could find out.”
I want to tell her she’s amazing. That without her doingwhat she did, it would have been so much worse, and people probably would’ve died. That it wasn’t her fault, and she should be so proud of herself. But I know she won’t believe me. I know how hard it is to hear those things.
So, instead, I say, “My sisters and I were going to dinner on our twenty-fifth birthday. I was driving. Shay was in the back, and G… Georgie was in the front.” I stumble over her name. Until last year, when I made her a memorial bench and Shay and I finally sat and spoke about our sister for the first time since her funeral, I hadn’t spoken her name in twenty-two years. “We’d had a lot of bad storms that week. The barrier along the side of the road got damaged in the storms, so when the rockfall hit, we had nowhere to go but over. Georgie died instantly. Shay and I were in the ravine for eleven hours. I was technically unconscious, but I remember her screaming, crying, begging until her voice gave out. I have nightmares about that a lot.” Este likely already knows about the crash, but she opened up to me and, much like the nightmares we shared, trading our dark shadows makes them feel a little lighter.
The panic is gone from her eyes, but I swear I see my own pain reflected in them.
“I’m so sorry, Nico. Thank you for telling me.”
“You too, angel.” I squeeze her shoulder. “Do you want to try and go back to sleep? Or come downstairs, and I’ll make you tea?”
“Downstairs,” she says, grabbing her Kindle from the nightstand with one hand and Amelia Bearhart with the other. She seems like herself again, like she just had to get it off her chest, but I understand why she clings so much tothe bear, now. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and fall asleep on the couch again.”
The boys fuss over her the second she steps off the stairs. I trail behind her, wondering if she owns longer pajama pants.
“Any tea preferences?” I ask, as she crouches down to kiss Earl’s nose.
“I’ve loved everything you’ve given me. I trust you.”
I like how that sounds. Even if it makes me feel like more of an asshole for the way my eyes linger on the spot where her oversized concert tee hits her thigh.
I brew one of my favorites for nights my nightmares are particularly bad: plum, ginger, cardamom. It’s like a hug in a cup. Este is already settled on her side of the couch—because that’s a thing that happens when there’s someone in your house—reading when I bring the tea over.
Watching her breathe in whatever kind of tea I give her is quickly becoming one of my favorite things. Her eyes close, her lips curve, and, for a split second, she looks completely at peace.
“I think this one smells the best yet,” she says, blowing on it and taking a sip I already know will be too hot. But I get it—I can never wait, either. “Holy shit. I would bathe in this if I could.”
I’m in the process of sitting down when she says it, and pause, a crystal-clear visual popping into my head. A problematic fucking visual. Fuck.
