Even back then, I knew I wanted a life outside Gilbert, Arizona, because I hadn’t met the one boy who might make me want to stay.
* * *
Mom and I are at the end of the last boarding group and the seats aren’t assigned, so we have to split up. The flight attendant directs us to an empty middle seat near the center of the plane and tells us there’s still an aisle seat in the last row. “Which one do you want?” Mom asks as she searches for room in an overhead bin to store our luggage.
“Hang on.” I pull up Magic 8 and type. Should I sit in the middle seat? I shake my phone and wait.
Doubtful.
“Aisle, please.” Done. Easy. No stress or angst about my potential seatmates or armrests or leg room or even the view. I think I’m going to like this new system. I settle into the last aisle, next to the bathroom. Which, okay. Maybe not the best seat in the house. But I’m on my first flight ever, and not even the thin wall between the toilet and me is going to dampen my mood.
My stomach clenches in excitement as the plane rumbles down the runway. I crane my neck to look out the window, but after a few seconds the woman in the window seat pulls the shade closed and slips a sleep mask over her eyes. All around me, people look tired and annoyed and bored, like they don’t realize or care that in less than eight hours we’ll land at LaGuardia Airport in New York. Well, New York by way of Atlanta, but still! Don’t these people realize how lucky they are?
I pull a small notebook from my backpack and examine the New York City at Christmas bucket list I made for myself.
I cobbled it together from half a dozen online articles sometime between the hazy hours of late last night and early this morning. Like Clover said, I’m taking charge of my life, and I’m not at all thinking about the week I’m missing with Fitz or which girl he’ll be in love with by the time I get home. Not much, anyway.
An hour into the flight, one of the attendants makes an announcement. “Good afternoon, passengers! Please direct your attention to row twenty-four for a special surprise.” I crane my neck around the bathrooms, where the flight attendants are smiling conspiratorially at each other.
“What’s going on?” I ask them.
“Watch.” An attendant with a name tag that says JULIE points to the middle of the plane.
A sweaty-looking guy with floppy hair is standing in the aisle. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand and clears his throat. “Four years ago, I was on a flight from Phoenix to Atlanta for a work trip.”
“I can’t hear you!” A shout comes from up front.
Sweaty guy clears his throat and starts again. “Four years ago, I was on a flight from Phoenix to Atlanta!” He’s practically shouting. “It was almost Christmas, and I was pissed off that my boss was making me travel, and I resolved to make everyone in my vicinity as miserable as I was. Until I sat in my seat, and laid eyes on the most beautiful girl in the world.” He bends and I think he dropped something, but then he’s on one knee. There’s a collective gasp. I lean forward, desperate to get a glimpse at the woman’s face. But all I can see is the man beaming at her as if she were every good thing on the planet Earth. My poor, lovesick heart squeezes, and I wish that Fitz were here to witness this. This is exactly the type of emotional candy he lives for.
“Makayla Rios, I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” He fumbles with the box, dropping it on the ground. It slides under a seat. Friendly laughter ripples through the plane, because no one has realized that she hasn’t said yes. And she’s not going to.
I know this because I know Fitz, and Fitz knows rom-coms. When a man proposes, there are only two reasons a woman does not immediately accept. The first reason is that she’s too busy crying or gasping to coherently form words. The second is that she’s not going to.
Makayla Rios leans into the aisle, her black hair falling forward to obscure her face. She whispers something into sweaty guy’s ear.
Let’s talk about this. I’m sorry. I can’t. I care about you. I wonder which of the thousand equally terrible ways she’s breaking his heart.
He’s frozen, unable to get up from his knee or close the ring box or wipe the gutted look from his face. Whispers spread like a naked selfie in a locker room.
“What did she say?”
“She said no!”
“Poor guy.”
“So awkward!”
I turn to the flight attendants. Julie is holding a bottle of champagne, watching this whole nightmare unfold with a horrified expression. “What do I do?” She turns to the other attendant, a bald guy with CrossFit muscles and a name tag that reads ADAM.
“Nothing! Put it away. I’ll distract them,” he whispers, and grabs the speaker.
“It is currently eight forty-five a.m. That would be, uh, Phoenix time. We’re flying at, um—thirty-six thousand feet and are on pace to land in Atlanta at twelve fifteen local time. If you’re continuing on to LaGuardia, please stay on board so we can count you as a through passenger. Thank you.”
The announcement gives proposal guy time to close the ring box and return to his seat. I squirm uneasily, overwhelmed with vicarious embarrassment. If it’s this bad for me, he must be dying.
“What do you think is happening?” I ask Julie as she readies the drink cart.
“I’ll find out and report back.” It takes approximately twelve hundred years for her to push the drinks all the way to the other end of the plane, but eventually she comes back, handing me a second hot chocolate when she sees I’ve finished my first. “They’re fighting. He’s crying,” she whispers as she crouches next to me under the guise of organizing the drink cart.
My heart shatters for him. I’m trying to think of some way to help when Makayla stands. “She’s coming back here! What do we do?” I whisper.
“Stop talking about her!” Julie whispers back as she clears the aisle.
I’m flustered as Makayla stops outside the bathrooms, which are both flipped red to OCCUPIED. She sighs heavily and leans against the wall. I sneak glances at her: early to midtwenties, thick black eyeliner, butterfly tattoo below her ear, blunt bangs across her forehead. Check, check, check. I make mental notes about all her characteristics, as if they’ll add up to something meaningful. Or maybe I’m looking for a warning sign. Something that says: This is what a person looks like right before they stomp on your heart.
She catches me staring. “Do you have something to say?”
Surprised, I turn around, half expecting her to be talking to someone else. But the woman beside me is still asleep.
“Are you talking to me?”
Her gaze lingers on the bruise on my forehead, still fresh after yesterday’s embarrassing fall. “You were gawking, like everyone else on the plane.”
I wince. “Sorry.”
She shrugs. “I get it. It was completely awful, like a car wreck you can’t look away from.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess, I mean— Did you break up?”
She nods.
“So you really don’t want to marry him.” Wow. Brilliant observation, Paige.
She blows her bangs out of her eyes with a sigh. “I’ve been meaning to break up with him for ages, but it never seemed like the right time.”