“I’m sorry,hardlyever?”
Arthur could hear very little over the roar of the plane as it readied for takeoff.
But he could still feel his cell phone buzzing up against his body, buried deep in several layers of clothing. He managed to finagle it out and answer with his nose, since his fingers were gloved.
It was Wren calling. He wasn’t supposed to answer his phone on the plane, but he had to know if everything was OK.
“Hello?”
“Arthur!”
“Hello?” He could barely make out her words.
“Where the hell are you? Why is it so loud there?”
“Uh—it was going to be a surprise! Are you OK?”
He couldn’t hear her response. The plane’s engine was too loud, and it sounded like the call was breaking up. A hand signal from one of the other instructors on board advised him to hang it up. Wren said something else that he couldn’t make out.
“Wren, I can’t really hear you!” he shouted. “So I’m just going to talk! Um, I think there’s a non-zero chance that I’m about to die. I probably won’t, don’t worry! But it’s kind of clarifying. I had an epiphany just now. I had it all wrong, Wren. I thought you always wanted me to be someone else. In reality, you just refused to let me settle for anything but thebest that I was capable of. And I love you for that. It’s not always comfortable with you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We do want the same things, Wren. We want each other. We want a life together. That’s all that matters. The details come later. Figuring it all out,thatis the adventure. I’m sorry for lying to you, for ruining so many things. But I’m jumping out of a plane any second now, to show you that I am capable of surprising you, to show you that—”
“ARTHUR!” her voice finally broke through the noise in a scream. “GET YOUR ASS TO THE HOSPITAL!”
“I— Wait, it’s happening? It’s time?”
“THE BABY IS COMING. NOW. LIKE, NOW NOW.”
“Mate,” the Australian instructor said to Arthur. “Put it away.”
“Just hold on,” Arthur told him. “Wren, I’m coming. I promise, I’m coming!”
Arthur hung up, tucked his phone away, and grabbed his instructor by the jumpsuit.
“I’m sorry, I gotta get off,” he said. “You gotta turn it around, land it somehow!”
“Sorry,” the guy said. “Only one way off now!”
Minutes later, Arthur’s instructor was painstakingly securing their harnesses. They were strapped together, and he was checking each and every buckle, every clip.
“I don’t want to sound like a dick,” Arthur said, “but is there any way we can hurry this along?”
The guy just looked at him, like,You’re kidding me, right?
“Got somewhere to be, do you?”
“Sort of, yeah!” Arthur yelled over the noise, which wasdeafening now, the jump door open and wind whipping inside the cabin. “My girlfriend is having our baby!”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now!”
The instructor took this in, looked around, and passed a hand signal back to another instructor, who was waiting with her own passenger.
“Best I can do is cut you in line and have you go first! You ready, mate?”
“Thank you— Wait, what?”
Did he just sayfirst?
