A Change of Plans

Ch. 3- Plane Panic Attacks

I get back to the terminal, and see that one of the three toddlers has woken up, and is playing leapfrog with their luggage. Allowing a smile back onto my face in hours, I go back to the woman who is watching my stuff. The scarf she's knitting is long enough to fully engulf my body by now, despite the fact that I was only gone for a little over forty five minutes. She looks up to see me approaching and cracks a wide grin.

"Did-ja talk to him?" She asks me with excitement dancing I her aged, weathered eyes.

"Uhhh... Not... Not exactly," I stammer out, face reddening a shade, shoulders slouching a few inches. A look of disappointment flashes across her face like a shadow, but she covers it quickly. She shrugs, regaining her smile, and rolls my suitcase over to me.

"Thank you so much, ma'a-" I start to sat, when she cuts me off with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Call me Katey-May," she grins, "Ma'am makes me feel like I'm gettin' old or somethin." For some reason, this makes me like her even more. I nod, smiling now, and she taps me on the shoulder as I turn to leave. I look back at her over my shoulder.

"I've gotta good feelin' about you and that handsome young boy," she says with a wink, "I'll bet you know him, don't cha?" I nod slowly, tears building once again. "Y'all will be just fine darlin'. Don't you worry." I take a deep breath and force a smile, thanking her for the advice, but knowing inside that she's wrong. Nothing could fix what Jackson did. Of that, I am sure.

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The woman at the check-in desk has on a tiringly artificial smile when I get to the front of the line. I hand her my ticket, and she stamps it with an exhausted sigh of relief, thanking me for having it out and not throwing a fit. I smile at her, as well as I can muster at almost 4:00 AM, take a deep breath, and check my seat number one more time before heading down what k lovingly refer to as the esophagus of doom into the belly of the beast. 17A, my ticket says in a bold font. An A seat... I'll be by a window. Biting the inside of my cheek, I walk the final steps onto the plane, and look for my seat, nerves eating at my insides already. I find my seat, a row of only two, in about the middle of the plane. I sigh, hoping my seatmate doesn't snore, and sit down, trying not to panic. I loathe flying. All my friends laugh, but it really is rather terrifying. Especially turbulence. I shudder at the mere thought. I close my eyes and rub my temples, trying to calm the already throbbing headache, when a pair of shuffling footsteps stop next to me. I open my eyes, seeing the owner of the feet, and my stomach sinks even further.

"You're 17B, aren't you," I say. It isn't a question. He bites his lip and nods, avoiding making eye contact with me.

"Okay," I mumble with a single nod, closing my eyes again. Another painful memory hits me-

~10th grade mission trip. We flew to Illinois and Jackson sat next to me on the plane- a row of two. The worst plane panic attack I've ever had. He held me the whole time and talked me through it, telling me I would be okay all the way through. I cut off the circulation in his fingers for thirty minutes. He laughed and said he would have to get a prosthetic hand, like Anakin in Star Wars.~

I open my eyes with a grimace as the stewardess comes on the intercom and tells us to fasten out seatbelts. Mine is already buckled, but I pull it even tighter. I see Jackson struggling with it, and without thinking, I reach over and do it for him, and he reaches up and grabs my hands. He looks at me, eyes wide, shocked, I guess, that I touched him, or even acknowledged him. I gasp, shocked at myself, and yank my hands back and tuck them in my lap, looking at my feet, embarrassed.

"Sorry," I mumble, feeling my face flush bright red. The woman goes over safety procedures, reminding me of everything that could go wrong, and I feel myself of the verge of panic as the plane begins to taxi down the runway. I clench and unclench my fists, I take deep breaths, I count back from 100, but everything that usually works isn't. Scared and frustrated, I feel a single hot tear slide down my cheek. I glance over to see if he saw it, and of course he did. He reaches over and takes my hands in his. I clench my eyes closed, shaking my head, unable to breathe, unable to speak.

"Avery." His tone is firm, but I can't respond. I shake my head again.

"Avery, if you can hear me," he interlocks our fingers, "Try to break my hands. Just like tenth grade." I squeeze his hands as hard as I possible can, panicked and angry that he brought it up, or even remembers, and I hear him gasp.

"Okay. Okay, Aves, let go. You're hurting me." I release my grip almost immediately, more tears escaping my eyes. He wraps his arms around me and talks in my ear.

"You're okay. Avery, you are okay." His tone is soothing, and his words and level voice slowly bring me back to reality, and realizing there is a very good chance I'm making a scene, I take a deep breath and pull away from him, retreating as close to the window as I can get. I see hurt flash across his face, but it leaves almost as fast as it appears, and I ignore it as he gives me a sad smile.

"You good?" He asks in an awkwardly casual tone. I nod and force a smile, inside asking myself the same thing. He offers me a tissue that I use to wipe the smeared makeup off my cheeks and blow my nose. I shift back towards the window, not wanting to talk about what just happened, or what today is. What it would be. I hear him sigh after a minute, and he turns away from me finally, as if giving up. I blink a few times in attempt to soothe my stinging eyes, pull out my Kindle, and glance around, accidentally making eye contact with Katey-May, who seems to have seen the whole thing, and is watching me with an apologetic yet mischievous gleam in her eyes, and she winks at me with a hopeful smile, telling me silently that she thinks this is going to be an interesting plane ride.