I slide into the window seat and buckle in quickly, movements efficient, contained. The belt clicks, too loud in the quiet cabin. I flinch again, then hate myself for it.
My phone is already in my hand before I consciously decide to check it. No messages. Of course not. I blocked everything connected to Marco before I left the apartment, scorched-earth efficient. There’s no way anything could come through now. Still, my thumb hovers over the screen like I expect it to light up, anyway, like dread might override logic if I give it enough time.
It doesn’t.
I lock the screen and drop the phone into my bag, out of sight. Out of reach. A flight attendant appears, smiling softly, voice pitched low and careful like she’s stepped into a library.
“Champagne?”
The word alone makes my nerves spark. I shake my head immediately. Too fast. “No, thank you.”
I’m too aware of him. Of how close he is. Of how small this space suddenly feels now that I’m seated and strapped in and there’s nowhere to retreat without asking permission.
She nods and moves on. I exhale slowly through my nose and reach for the magazine tucked into the seat pocket, flipping it open without really seeing the cover. My eyes skim glossy pages full of places and people who look unafraid of their own lives.
I don’t read a single word.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him lift the book he was holding when I arrived. The cover is worn, the spine creased. It’s written in Italian, from what I can tell. He opens it. Doesn’t turn the page.
We sit like that, side by side, both pretending to occupy ourselves. Silence stretches between us, thick and strange, not empty exactly. Charged. Like the pause right before something breaks or shifts or goes wrong. I can feel his awareness the way you feel heat from a body standing just a little too close. Not intrusive. Not touching. Justthere. Watching without staring.
My skin hums with it, nerves lit and listening, every part of me caught between bracing for impact and leaning toward something I don’t understand yet.
He shifts slightly in his seat. Just a fraction. A change of weight. Leather creaking. My body reacts before my brain can catch up. A sharp inhale. Muscles tightening, shoulders drawing in, pulse jumping like I’ve been called by name.
I hate it. Hate that I flinched. Hate that it’s automatic. Hate the way his attention sharpens. Not in a way that feels predatory, but in a way that tells me he noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Men like him always do.
Heat crawls up my neck, equal parts embarrassment and old, useless fear. I keep my eyes locked on the open magazine, on a photograph of a woman laughing on a beach somewhere bright and impossible. My fingers curl tighter around the page to keep them from shaking.
Don’t explain,I tell myself.Don’t fill the silence.
The urge is there, anyway. I could tell him it’s nothing. I could make a joke. I could minimize the bruises, like I always do.Clumsy…I bruise easily… it looks worse than it is.
My mouth stays closed. It’s an effort. Like holding a door shut against pressure I’ve been trained to release. I tell myself I don’t owe this stranger anything. Not an explanation. Not a story. Not reassurance that I’m fine enough to be ignored.
Still, my skin feels too tight around the marks I know are visible. Wrist. Collarbone. Places that never seem to heal fast enough to keep up with excuses.
I shift my focus inward, building a plan the way I always do when my thoughts start to spiral.
Sleep. That’s the goal. I’ll sleep through the flight, head tipped toward the window, eyes closed, body still. No talking.No connection. No giving him anything he might misinterpret as permission.
It’s a good plan. A sensible one. But I know even as I make it that it’s a lie. I won’t sleep. My heart is still beating too fast, my nerves stretched too thin. I still can’t quite believe I’m doing this. Running. Actually running. Getting on a plane instead of waiting for the apology cycle to start, for the promises that sound reasonable until they’re not, for the version of him that swears he’ll be better if I just stay put long enough.
I mean, what happens when he comes home and the apartment is empty? What happens when he notices what’s missing? When he checks his phone and sees he’s blocked? When he realizes I didn’t just leave the room… I left him?
My stomach twists hard at the thought. Marco doesn’t lose quietly. He doesn’t shrug and move on. He looks for someone to punish, and if I’m not there, he’ll look harder. He’ll call. He’ll text from new numbers. He’ll show up places I didn’t think he knew about. He’ll tell himself I owe him an explanation, closure, obedience.
I can already hear it.You embarrassed me. You made me look stupid. You don’t get to disappear like that.
The plane hasn’t even pushed back yet, and I’m already bracing for the fallout.
I curl my fingers into the armrest, grounding myself in the present. Leather. Cool. Real. I tell myself I’ve done everything right. I blocked him, I left fast, I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.
Still, fear doesn’t care about logic. Fear remembers patterns. Fear remembers the way Marco’s anger sharpens when he feels out of control, the way he always said I wouldn’t last on my own, the way he liked reminding me how small my world really was.
And then there’shim. The stranger beside me. Every tiny movement registers. The hum of the engines, the muted voices up front, the steady presence beside me.
And his stillness. It’s not rigid. Not coiled. Not like Marco’s silence that always meant an explosion was coming.
This is… different. Intentional, like he’s choosing calm instead of forcing it.
My chest loosens just a little at the thought, and that terrifies me more than if he’d felt dangerous. Because threat, I understand. Safety, the suggestion of it, the possibility, has always been the thing that costs me the most.
