Page 17 of All the way home

i’m going to drown myself in a water fountain

please do not do that also my condolences to ur headphones

you’re going to have to like . . . talk to people.

god FORBID

actually i was being talked at by a guy wearing a turtleneck

a GUY?!?! an actual human?

is he cute

devastatingly

wait. wait wait wait.

you were being talked at

by a DEVASTATINGLY cute guy in a turtleneck

and you are complaining????

come ON you are better than this

sort of. he’s a total stranger.

we’re seat neighbors on the plane tho

and you found this out how??

he asked me

LOKI

. . . shut up

also don’t call me that

k, loki

promise me you’re not going to puke on him

Gaping at his phone, Zach types thanks for that image and then deletes it. Types it again. Deletes it. Sends a singular poop emoji.

Then he pockets his phone and turns back to his book. Under ordinary circumstances, Zach would be able to lose himself in it, but today he pages listlessly through it, unable to focus when there might be more important announcements.

Absently, he wishes for his headphones. Again. Probably this is the thing his brain is going to hook onto and obsess over while he waits for the flight to start boarding.

There’s always something.

Right next to the gate, there’s a tiny little gift shop, brightly lit and so colorful it almost hurts his eyes. It looks like they have everything under the sun: candy, water bottles, magazines lauding the lurid details of celebrity life, sweatshirts with a half dozen varieties of the Canadian flag across the chest, and that’s just what he can see from here. What would they charge him for headphones?

Highway robbery, he hears his dad say in his head. Don’t buy anything in an airport that you could get at a Walmart.

Zach doesn’t really have money to spend anyway, so it’s a moot point.

Phone still clamped to his ear, the businessman returns, scowling when he finds Zach in his seat.