Plot Twist In Paradise
by IAmHerEmma

 

 

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Chapter Four: Two Kilos Is Not A Character Flaw

 

The apartment looked like it was judging me for leaving.

Not in any dramatic way — the furniture hadn't rearranged itself into a disapproving formation, the velvet loveseat wasn't weeping. But there was something about the stillness of a space you were about to abandon for over a week that made it feel like it had opinions. The coffee machine, freshly cleaned for the first time in a month, sat on the counter looking like a pet that knew it was being left behind. The bookshelves — still organized by color, still the only area of the apartment that reflected a functioning adult — watched from the living room wall like an audience that had already decided how this was going to end.

I was standing by the door in a black shirt dress and flats, hair down, makeup done but not overdone, looking like a woman who had a plan. Which I did. The plan was: get in a taxi, get to the airport, get on a plane, take a boat to a small island in the middle of the ocean, and sit there for nine days hoping my brain remembered how to form sentences. Perfectly normal. Very sane. The kind of thing well-adjusted people did all the time, presumably.

My phone buzzed. The taxi app informed me that my driver, Dmitri, was twelve minutes away. Silver Camry, 4.7-star rating. Good enough.

Three bags sat by the door like they were waiting for a job interview. The tote was manageable — the kind of soft, overstuffed bag that said I am a person who carries things and does not apologize for how many things I carry. Phone, sunglasses, wallet, a few things I'd want on the flight without digging through a carry-on, and a paperback called Tides of Temptation that I'd grabbed off the shelf at the last minute. The cover featured a shirtless man emerging from the ocean with the kind of abs that only existed on book covers and in the imaginations of people who had never been to an actual beach. I'd bought it at a drugstore six months ago in a moment of weakness and it had been sitting on my shelf ever since, silently daring me to open it.

The carry-on was a sensible rolling case that held my laptop, chargers, and a notebook I'd packed with the vague optimism of someone bringing a gym bag to a hotel. The notebook was new — unlined, leather-bound, the kind of thing a person bought when they wanted to feel like a writer without actually having to write anything.

And then there was the suitcase.

The suitcase was a problem I was choosing not to acknowledge. It was a large hard-shell roller in navy blue — a perfectly reasonable piece of luggage that I had owned for years and that had never once given me trouble. The trouble was not the suitcase. The trouble was what was inside it, which was approximately twice as much clothing as any human being needed for nine days, because I had made the mistake of taking Sasha shopping with me.

Taking Sasha shopping had been like inviting a general to a pillow fight. I'd walked into the store with a list — a sensible, curated list of things I actually needed. Lightweight tops. A couple of sundresses. Maybe a swimsuit. Sasha had looked at my list, looked at me, and then put the list in her pocket and never mentioned it again.

What followed was ninety minutes of Sasha pulling things off racks with the decisive authority of someone defusing a bomb, holding them up against me, saying "yes," "no," "absolutely not," or "trust me," and depositing them into a basket I hadn't been consulted about. I'd tried to argue. I'd held up a perfectly nice linen shirt I'd picked out myself and Sasha had taken it from my hands, examined it for roughly one second, said "you'd look like someone's aunt at a vineyard," and put it back on the rack.

She'd pulled bikini tops that were meant to be worn with shorts — the kind that looked casual but were clearly designed by someone who understood that "casual" was just "deliberate" with better marketing. Sundresses in colors I wouldn't have reached for on my own. A wrap dress for dinners that Sasha had called "the closer" and refused to elaborate on. Accessories I hadn't asked for and a pair of sandals that were objectively beautiful and that I was mildly furious about because they were exactly right and I hadn't found them myself.

The result was a suitcase that closed only because I'd sat on it, and that rolled like it wanted me to know it was carrying more than it had signed up for. It made a sound on the hardwood that I chose to interpret as judgment.

I did one last lap of the apartment. Kitchen — coffee machine off, fridge emptied of anything that would become a science experiment while I was gone, countertop wiped to a standard I would never normally maintain but felt necessary when you were leaving for nine days.

Bedroom — bed made with a precision I usually reserved for absolutely nothing. Blinds closed. The fraudulent blackout blinds that had never blacked out a single thing, now tasked with the simple job of existing while I wasn't here to be disappointed by them. They'd probably manage that.

Bathroom — everything I needed was packed, everything I didn't need was in its place, the mirror was clean and reflecting an empty room back at itself. Good. Fine. The apartment was ready to be abandoned. It looked better than it had in weeks, which was the kind of irony I was trying not to think about — that the space looked its best the moment I was leaving it.

My phone buzzed again. Dmitri was seven minutes away.

I walked back to the door and stood there, looking at my three bags and the apartment beyond them. Nine days. Nine days on a tropical island with strangers, because my editor had given me a brochure and my best friend had told me to stop being a hermit and I'd booked a bungalow at midnight like a person making sensible life choices.

I still wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting to happen out there. Not a miracle. I wasn't stupid enough to think that a change of scenery was going to magically unstick whatever had gone wrong in my head. But somewhere underneath the disbelief there was something quieter. Something I wasn't going to examine too closely, because examining things too closely was how you ruined them.

The itinerary was: taxi, airport, plane, boat, island. In that order. One step at a time. That was plenty to think about.

I picked up my phone, confirmed the taxi, and texted Sasha.

Me: Leaving now. If I don't come back, the apartment is yours. Sell the loveseat.

Her reply came before I'd even put the phone down.

Sasha: Don't sell the loveseat. Have fun. Send pictures.

Me: Of what? The ocean? You've seen an ocean.

Sasha: Of you outside. For science.

I pocketed the phone, grabbed the tote, and took a handle in each hand — carry-on left, suitcase right. They rolled behind me like hostages.

That made two of us.

I pulled the door shut, locked it, and walked toward the elevator without looking back — because looking back was for people in movies, and this wasn't a movie. This was a woman in a black shirt dress dragging an unreasonably heavy suitcase toward a silver Camry driven by a man named Dmitri, hoping that a vacation on an island would fix something she couldn't fix in her own apartment.

It wasn't romantic. It wasn't cinematic. But it was, at least, a different direction than the couch.

Dmitri was leaning against the Camry, arms folded, in no particular rush about anything. He straightened when he saw me come through the lobby doors.

"Ms. Moore?" he said.

"That's me."

"Good morning, ma'am. Let me get those for you."

Ma'am. I was twenty-eight. But sure, Dmitri. Ma'am it is.

Dmitri had already taken the suitcase handle from me — smoothly, without asking twice — and was rolling it toward the trunk. He lifted it in with one clean motion and then paused, just slightly, in a way that made me think the weight had registered. He didn't say anything. Professional. I respected that.

The carry-on went in next. He closed the trunk and opened the rear door for me.

I slid into the backseat. It smelled like air freshener — the pine tree kind that hung from rearview mirrors and promised a forest experience that no car had ever delivered. The seats were clean. There was a bottle of water in the cup holder that I was pretty sure was complimentary but wasn't confident enough to open.

Dmitri got in, adjusted his mirror, and pulled away from the curb.

"Airport, yes?"

"Yes. Thank you."

He nodded once, merged into traffic, and for a few blocks the car was quiet, neither of us reaching for conversation. The city scrolled past the window in the gray-gold light of a morning that hadn't fully committed to being sunny. Storefronts with their gates still half-down. A man walking a dog that was significantly more awake than he was. A woman in scrubs waiting at a bus stop, coffee in hand, staring at nothing with the focused blankness of someone conserving energy for whatever was coming next.

"Going somewhere nice?" Dmitri asked, glancing at the mirror.

There it was. The question. Polite, harmless, the kind of thing taxi drivers asked because silence was fine but conversation was also fine and they'd learned to let the passenger decide which one.

"An island holiday," I said.

It sounded ridiculous out loud. In my head I could dress it up with context — the block, the brochure, the combined insistence of everyone I knew. Out loud it was just a woman going on holiday. Like someone who did that sort of thing on purpose.

"That's nice," Dmitri said. "Everyone needs a break sometimes."

"Yeah," I said. "Sometimes."

He left it there. A polite acknowledgment and then back to driving. I liked Dmitri. Dmitri understood boundaries.

The city thinned as we moved toward the expressway. The brownstones and bodegas gave way to wider roads and the kind of low, flat buildings that existed in the transition zone between a city and its airport — storage facilities, rental car lots, a hotel that looked like it had been built in the seventies and hadn't been updated since because no one staying there was doing it by choice. The skyline shrank in the rearview mirror. I watched it go without the poetic wistfulness that a better writer would have mustered. It was just buildings. They'd be there when I got back.

The airport appeared on the horizon the way airports always did — gradually, then all at once, a sprawl of concrete and signage and the particular chaos of a place designed to move thousands of people in different directions simultaneously while pretending to be organized about it.

Dmitri pulled up to the departures curb and put the car in park. He was out and at the trunk before I'd finished unbuckling, lifting the suitcase out with the same smooth motion as before, setting the carry-on beside it.

I got out and stood on the curb with my bags, feeling the familiar airport rush of people and luggage carts and announcements bleeding through the terminal doors.

"Thank you, Dmitri," I said.

He gave me a small nod. "Have a good trip, ma'am."

Ma'am again. I tipped him through the app — generously, for the bags and the silence — and watched him pull away from the curb.

I grabbed a handle in each hand, adjusted the tote on my shoulder, and started toward the terminal entrance. The automatic doors were maybe fifteen steps away.

I made it about four steps before impact.

A hard bump at my shoulder, the ugly crunch of roller bags tangling like they'd decided to elope, and my tote sliding off my arm fast enough to scatter half my life across the pavement.

Sunglasses, wallet, phone, and — because the universe had a sense of humor — Tides of Temptation, cover-up for the whole world to see.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I said, already crouching.

"I'm so sorry — are you okay?"

I looked up ready to commit a murder. Dark hair past her shoulders, pulled back loosely, a sundress that looked like she'd actually thought about it before leaving the house. Already crouching to help, which would have been nice if she wasn't the reason I needed it.

"I'm fine," I said, in a tone that made it clear I wasn't.

"You sure? That was —"

"I said I'm fine."

She handed me my sunglasses, my wallet. I took them without looking at her. Then she reached for Tides of Temptation.

Time slowed down the way it only did during moments of genuine, soul-deep embarrassment. I watched her hand close around the book. I watched her lift it. I watched her eyes move — briefly, involuntarily — to the cover. To the shirtless man. To the abs. To the title, which was printed in raised gold lettering across his chest like a dare.

She looked at the book. She looked at me. Her expression didn't change, exactly, but something behind her eyes shifted — the faintest flicker of something she had the good grace not to let out.

I pulled the book out of her hand with more speed than the situation required.

"Thank you," I said, in a way that meant the opposite.

"Interesting choice," she said, like she was commenting on the weather.

"It's research," I said, which was a lie so instant and so baseless that I almost impressed myself.

"Research," she repeated, in a tone that made it clear she was not impressed.

I shoved the book into the tote and started gathering the rest of my things with the focused urgency of someone who needed this interaction to end. "You know, most people who knock someone over at least have the decency to look sorry about it."

"I said I was sorry."

"You said the words. There was no feeling behind them. I've heard more convincing apologies from automated emails."

"Would you like me to try again with more emotion? I can add a tremor if it helps."

I stood up, tote back on my shoulder, dignity in the process of being reassembled. She was standing too, roller bag in hand, slightly taller than me — just enough that I had to angle my chin up, which did absolutely nothing for my mood.

"I'd prefer," I said, "if people watched where they were going."

"I was watching where I was going. You just happened to be in the way."

"Oh, I was in your way. On a public curb. At a public airport. Where I was publicly standing. Minding my own business."

"With a lot of bags."

"Excuse me?"

"You had a lot of bags. I'm just saying — the footprint was considerable."

"The footprint was —" I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again. "Did you just blame the collision on my luggage?"

"I'm saying it was a factor."

"A factor."

"Contributory."

I stared at her. She held it — composed, steady, with just the faintest crack of something at the corner of her mouth that might have been a smile if she'd been a different person in a different situation. She was enjoying this. Not openly, not warmly, but somewhere behind the composure she was absolutely enjoying watching me sputter on an airport curb about luggage footprint.

"You know what," I said. "Forget it. I hope wherever you're going they have a class on spatial awareness."

"I hope wherever you're going they have a luggage limit."

I opened my mouth to respond but nothing came out fast enough.

She tilted her head, just slightly. "Enjoy your research," she said. Then she turned and walked through the doors, roller bag trailing behind her.

I stood there on the curb, tote on my shoulder, handles in my hands, staring at the automatic doors that had just swallowed her.

"Ughhh."

I said it out loud. To nobody. At an airport. Like a person who was having a completely normal start to her vacation.

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and opened them.

Fine. Just a stranger. Just a collision. Just a minor, meaningless interaction with a woman I was never going to see again.

I straightened my tote, grabbed my handles, and walked through the doors.

The terminal was the usual controlled chaos — screens cycling through departures, families moving in confused clusters, a man in a suit walking so fast he was essentially jogging. I scanned the overhead signs, found my airline, and followed the arrows toward the check-in counters, still composing better comebacks in my head. Contributory. Who talked like that? Who used the word "contributory" in a sidewalk argument and walked away like they'd just settled a legal dispute?

The line was eight or nine people deep. I parked my bags and joined it, letting the slow shuffle forward do its work. By the time I reached the front, I'd mentally won the curb argument three times, each version more devastating than the last. None of them had happened. All of them were magnificent.

The agent behind the counter was a woman with her hair in a tight bun and a name badge that read GLORIA. Her smile was professional and well-rehearsed, but not unkind.

"Good morning," Gloria said. "Passport and booking confirmation, please."

I fished my passport out of the tote, pulled up the confirmation on my phone, and handed both over.

Gloria took the passport, opened it, looked at the photo, looked at me. There was a beat — brief, barely a pause, but I felt it the way I always felt it.

"So, Mr. Moo—" She caught herself. Looked at me again. "I'm sorry. Ms. Moore."

"That's me," I said. It wasn't the first time, wouldn't be the last. I was used to it.

Gloria moved on without fuss, tapping at her keyboard, scanning the confirmation. Then she gestured toward the scale beside the counter.

"Could you place your check-in bag on the scale for me?"

I lifted the suitcase onto the scale with confidence. The digital display flickered and settled.

Gloria looked at it. Then she looked at me.

"Ms. Moore, your bag is two kilos over the limit."

"Two kilos? That's nothing. Two kilos is not a character flaw."

"The allowance is twenty-three kilograms and your bag is coming in at twenty-five," Gloria said, unmoved. "The excess charge would be seventy-five dollars, or you're welcome to redistribute some items into your carry-on." She glanced at the rolling case beside me. "It looks like you might have some room."

Seventy-five dollars. For two kilos.

"I'll move some things," I said.

"Of course. Just step to the side and come back when you're ready."

And so began the most dignified moment of my morning. Which, given how the morning had gone, was saying something.

I wheeled both bags to the side, crouched down, opened the suitcase, and started the transfer. The backup sundress went first — because this was Sasha's fault and the sundress was going to answer for it. Then a pair of wedge heels that I'd packed on the theory that I might want to feel tall at some point during my stay, a theory that now seemed wildly optimistic.

I was shoving the wedges into the carry-on, knees on the terminal floor, when I heard it.

"Luggage trouble?"

I knew the voice before I looked up.

She was walking past — same stride, same roller bag, same composure — like the curb incident had been a minor blip in an otherwise seamless morning.

"Just a minor reorganization," I said, without looking up. "Totally normal. Happens to everyone."

"Looks like quite the redistribution."

I looked up. "Do you just circle airports looking for people to comment on, or am I special?"

She almost smiled. Almost. "You're memorable. I'll give you that."

And then she was past me, disappearing into the terminal with her single, correctly weighted bag and her single, correctly weighted opinion.

I stared after her for a beat too long, then looked down at the open suitcase, the overstuffed carry-on, and the wedge heel still in my hand.

"I hate this airport," I muttered.

I zipped everything shut, hauled myself up, and rolled back to Gloria's counter. She weighed the suitcase again.

"Twenty-two point eight," she said. "You're all set."

She tagged the bag, printed my boarding pass, and slid it across the counter.

"Boarding starts in about an hour and a half. Have a nice flight, Ms. Moore."

"Thank you, Gloria."

I took the boarding pass, grabbed my carry-on and tote, and walked away from the counter with whatever was left of my composure.

Security was the usual exercise in organized humiliation. Shoes off, laptop out, belt off — except my belt was built into the dress, which meant it wasn't coming off, which meant I was about to have a conversation about it.

I loaded my carry-on and tote into the bins, slid them onto the conveyor belt, and stepped through the scanner. It beeped. Of course it beeped.

"Ma'am, could you step to the side, please?"

A male TSA agent gestured me toward the secondary screening area. I stepped over.

"We're going to need to do a patdown. Would you prefer a private screening or are you comfortable here?"

"Here is fine," I said. "Could I get a female agent?"

"Of course." He turned and called over his shoulder. "Ramirez, patdown."

Agent Ramirez appeared — a woman in her forties with a no-nonsense ponytail. She pulled on a fresh pair of gloves and gave me a quick rundown.

"I'm going to use the backs of my hands along your torso and waistband. I'll tell you before I touch anything. Sound good?"

"Sounds like a Friday morning," I said.

She almost laughed. Almost. "Arms out to the side for me, please."

I stood there, arms extended, in the middle of an airport security checkpoint, being professionally patted down because my shirt dress had a buckle and the scanner had feelings about it. Around me, other travelers moved through their own screening lanes with the glazed efficiency of people who had done nothing to trigger a beep. Good for them. Good for them and their beltless outfits and their uncomplicated mornings.

Ramirez worked quickly — shoulders, sides, waistband, the belt buckle that had started all of this. Professional, thorough, completely unremarkable. She paused at the buckle, ran a finger along the edge to confirm it was just metal and not whatever else scanners were worried about these days, and stepped back.

"You're all clear," she said, pulling off the gloves. Then she paused, looking at me — not at the buckle, not at the screening form, at me — and her voice dropped half a register, just enough that it became a conversation between two people instead of an agent and a passenger.

"Where are you headed, if you don't mind me asking?"

"A place called The Whispering Palms," I said. "At Coral Key. Which sounds like either a resort or a cult, and honestly I'm still not a hundred percent sure which."

Ramirez laughed. "I'm sure it's the resort." She folded the gloves in her hands. "My niece is trans. She's been wanting to travel for years but she keeps putting it off. The airports, the security lines, the ID checks — it all stresses her out. She worries about moments like this." She gestured vaguely at the screening area. "Good for you for just going."

That caught me off guard. Not the words — the words were simple enough. It was that she'd said them here, in the middle of a security checkpoint, gloves still in her hand, like it was the most natural thing in the world to tell a stranger something that mattered.

"Tell her to book the trip," I said. "That's what my friend told me. Just book it and figure out the rest later."

Ramirez smiled. A real one, not the professional version. "I might just do that."

She gave me a nod — warm, brief, the kind that said everything it needed to without overstaying — and turned back to her station.

I collected my things from the bins, put my shoes back on, and walked into the terminal on the other side of security. I pulled out my boarding pass and checked the gate. B14.

B14 was already surrounded by a growing crowd of passengers — people standing, sitting on the floor, leaning against walls. The departure board said I still had over an hour until boarding.

A café sat across from the gate — one of those airport places with overpriced pastries behind glass and a menu that charged six dollars for what was essentially hot water and a tea bag. I joined the short line, ordered an iced coffee and a blueberry muffin, and paid an amount that I chose not to think about because thinking about it would ruin the muffin.

I found a small table near the window with a view of the gate and sat down. The coffee was cold and sweet and exactly what I needed after the morning I'd had.

I pulled out my phone and texted Sasha.

Me: Made it through security

Sasha: Still alive?

Me: Barely. Some woman literally crashed into me outside the terminal

Sasha: Crashed??

Me: Knocked my tote right off my shoulder. Everything went flying. And THEN she had the audacity to blame ME for it

Sasha: How is that your fault

Me: Apparently my luggage had a "considerable footprint"

Sasha: She said that to you???

Me: With a straight face. Then told me to enjoy my day and walked off like she'd won something

Sasha: I kind of love her

Me: You're supposed to be on MY side

Sasha: I am! But "considerable footprint" is objectively funny

Me: It's not funny when you're the one on the ground. Anyway. Curbside Karen can have the airport.

Sasha: Curbside Karen LOL

Sasha: Was she hot though?

Me: Irrelevant

Sasha: So yes

Me: I'm about to eat my muffin and ignore you

Sasha: Tell Curbside Karen I said hi

I put the phone down and took a bite of the muffin. It was dry. Airport muffins were always dry. I ate it anyway because I'd paid for it and because spite was a valid motivator.

I had an hour. I had coffee. I had a table. I had no excuse. I pulled the laptop out of the carry-on and opened it.

The document was still there. Still empty. The cursor blinked at me with the same patient indifference it had been blinking at me for weeks — unhurried, unbothered, content to wait me out until one of us died.

I put my fingers on the keys.

Nothing.

I shifted in my chair. Took a sip of coffee. Tried again.

She —

I stared at the single word. Three letters. One pronoun. No idea what came after it.

She walked —

No. Walking? Everyone walked. My characters were always walking somewhere in the first line like I was writing pedestrian fan fiction.

Delete.

The —

The what? The morning? The woman? The author, sitting in an airport café, typing single words and deleting them like the world's slowest typist?

Delete.

A man at the next table was watching something on his tablet. Without headphones. The audio leaked across the café — some kind of comedy podcast or YouTube video, punctuated by bursts of his own laughter that arrived at full volume and without warning. He laughed the way some people sneezed: loudly, involuntarily, and with no concern for the people around him.

I looked back at the screen.

The morning had —

Two kids sprinted past my table screaming, one of them clipping the edge of my chair hard enough to jolt my coffee. I flinched, grabbed the cup, and watched them tear across the café like tiny agents of chaos. Their mother appeared three seconds later, moving at the particular speed of a woman who was too tired to run but too responsible to stop.

"Miles! Ava! Get back here right now, I am not playing with you!"

Miles and Ava did not get back there. Miles and Ava had found the pastry display and were pressing their faces against the glass with the focused intensity of tiny art critics evaluating a gallery show.

I looked back at the screen.

The cursor blinked.

The man laughed at his tablet again.

A barista called out someone's name — "Decaf oat latte for Trevor!" — and Trevor did not come, so she called it again, louder, and then a third time with a tone that suggested Trevor's latte was about to become her latte.

Miles ran past again. The man laughed again. The barista called Trevor's name again. The cursor blinked again.

I closed the laptop.

Not gently. Not the quiet surrender of someone who'd accepted the situation. I closed it the way you'd hang up on someone who'd put you on hold for too long — with the controlled force of a person who was choosing not to throw something and wanted credit for the restraint. Everything was on my last nerve and my last nerve was considering a career change.

The PA system crackled overhead.

"Attention passengers. We will now begin boarding for flight 714 with service to —"

Thank god.

I shoved the laptop into the tote. The plane would be better. The plane had to be better. At the very least, nobody on a plane had ever chased a sibling into my kneecap while a stranger provided the laugh track. I tossed what was left of the muffin, grabbed my coffee, and headed for the gate.

Boarding was the usual slow funnel of people pretending they understood the zone system. I waited for my group, shuffled down the jet bridge with everyone else, and stepped onto the plane.

The cabin smelled like recycled air and cleaning solution — the specific combination that said you are now inside a tube that is about to leave the ground, and there is nothing you can do about it. I checked my boarding pass. 24A. Window seat. Small mercy.

I made my way down the aisle, dodging elbows and overhead bins and a man who had stopped in the middle of the row to remove something from his bag with the urgency of someone disarming a device. My row was about two-thirds of the way back. I found it, checked the number twice because I was not about to sit in the wrong seat and add that to the day's list, and started getting settled.

The carry-on needed to go in the overhead bin. I lifted it — or tried to. The thing was heavier than it had been this morning, courtesy of the sundress and wedge heels that were now living in it, and my arms made their opinion known immediately. I got it to chest height, which was not overhead height, and stood there holding it like an offering to a god who was not interested.

"Need a hand?"

The voice came from behind me. I turned. A man — mid-thirties, polo shirt, smile that arrived a beat too fast — was already reaching for the bag without waiting for an answer.

"I've got it," I said.

"It's no trouble." He was already lifting it, sliding it into the bin with the ease of someone who wanted you to notice how easy it was. "There you go."

"Thanks," I said, in a tone calibrated to communicate gratitude and absolutely nothing else.

"Anytime." His eyes lingered a half-second too long. "Traveling alone?"

"With my thoughts. They're very demanding company."

His smile faltered, just slightly — the micro-expression of a man recalculating — and he moved on down the aisle. I slid into my window seat, buckled my seatbelt, and exhaled.

The window showed the tarmac — grey, flat, busy with luggage carts and ground crew in high-vis vests doing whatever ground crew did. Beyond it, the sky was pale and wide and going somewhere I couldn't see yet. I leaned my head back against the headrest and let the noise of the cabin wash over me — the rustle of bags, the murmur of conversations, the distant thud of overhead bins closing one by one.

For the first time all morning, something in me loosened. Not a lot. Just enough to notice. The airport was behind me. The entire morning was behind me. Ahead was just the trip. Ahead was nine days of sun, water, and the possibility, however slim, of something unsticking.

I closed my eyes. Let out a long breath.

Maybe this would be okay. Maybe this was exactly what I needed. Maybe Maribel and Sasha had been right all along and I'd been too stubborn to —

"What the —"

The voice came from right beside my seat. Close. Familiar.

My eyes opened.

I turned.

"Son of a b-."