Before you go... //h.s

High Hopes

The smell of leather and other people fills my nose as I lean back slightly in my seat, my fists clenched in my lap to try and distract me from the fact I'm on a plane filled with hundreds of strangers who's lives I don't know.

A film is playing in front of me, the black and white scenes and figures moving and speaking their parts but I'm not listening, it may as well not be playing.

My mind just keeps stumbling over and over the idea of aeroplanes. How the fuck can a metal object this big and heavy fly? How is it possible that we're just...floating in the air? How does that work? It's just one of the things in life that my brain simply cannot wrap itself around.

There is an elderly woman next to me, her hair neatly pinned up and her clothes ironed. Her eyes have crinkles at the corners showing a life of love and happiness. Out of the window, all I can are the clouds drifting through the air, puffy mountains of water droplets.

Watching them should be fascinating, but I keep thinking about Harry. Of course I do, he's never been off my mind every day since the day he kissed me.

In my mind's eye, I could picture his wavy hair ruffling in the breeze as his arm wrapped around my shoulders and he placed a kiss on my head whilst we walked together through the fields around my town.

We'd stayed there for about a week until I finally decided it was time for me to return back home to New York. So here I was on the flight back, only a month later than originally planned.

Harry, of course, was beginning his world tour for Fine Line. The album I still hadn't listened to.

And along with all the shows he was doing, he had plenty of interviews lined up and talk shows he was featuring on so it was fair to say that his schedule for this year was already looking hectic. But I couldn't wait to watch his shows back on the internet, to see his incredible sparkling outfits and boldness on stage.

He was coming to New York to perform in Madison Square Gardens in a couple of week's time, three days after his birthday which I was planning hectically for after I accidentally missed it last year. So I would have to last these two weeks with only facetime calls and grammatically correct texts.

But even that was enough after the absence I'd endured for the past few months.

The pearl necklace I'd given him the day we got back together was still around his neck, every day since then. I'd seen it peeking out from under his hoodie and t-shirts and every time the glow of the pearls caught the light, it made the corners of my mouth curl in a smile. Giving him the string of pearls was one of the best things I'd done. It just made sense.

The attendants voice rings out over the speakers announcing it's only half an hour until landing and a sigh of relief leaves my lips. I didn't hate flying at all but this particular flight had seemed to go on for hours and I honestly couldn't wait to get back to my apartment and see Maya and Stanley in person again for the first time in too long.

The aeroplane finally landed with a soft jolt and as people began to pile off the plane, the older woman next to me turned and gave me a smile, our first interaction despite the six hours we'd just spent sitting on a plane together. She nodded at me, a gesture appreciation for me not being an awful person to sit next to on the plane, and with that she picked up her small handbag from under the seat ahead and joined the que of people desperate to get off the plane.

I got up slowly, removing my small suitcase from the overhead locker and ambling off the plane. There was no point rushing and getting stuck in a heated crowd of strangers when I could take my time and have some more of my own personal space.

Passports checks go by too quickly, my mind occupying me as it thinks of every single possibility that could go wrong in the airport right now that could result in my death. A bomb could go off. A plane could crash into it. Someone's hairspray could get caught on fire by someone's else's lighter. A gas pipe underneath the airport could go off.