Our Scars

Security Check

52

Security Check (Title by Sophie Hunger)

To find one's suspicions and forebodings confirmed wasn't always as satisfying as being able to say: "See? I was right all along!" to a friend you've had differences of opinion with. On the contrary:

In this case it was certainly just disenchanting and disruptive. This was not what Rianne had pictured the start of her first vacation with Jay to look like, in no way how she had imagined her first major holidays in a new relationship to turn out.

She shouldn't have had to be driving to the airport alone, listening to happy Christmas songs on the radio that made her teeth hurt. Rianne would have wanted to find out what Jay's favorite song was and annoy the hell out of him by singing along loud and dramatically. She shouldn't have to be just thinking that it was weird being clad in a thick winter coat, UGGs and a woolen hat now and looking forward to jumping into a pool the next day, probably ending up in flip flops pretty much everyday. She had wanted to hear Jay's amused chuckle while she shared her thoughts and him saying that he was looking forward to seeing her in that retro bikini. It would have been nice standing in line for check-in, snuggled up against his tall frame, joking and flirting while people watching, slowly letting go of all the stress and hassle of the past days. They should have left that behind together at security check and then slowly shed worry after worry the closer they got to boarding the plane: While having a late night coffee at some overpriced airport Starbucks or lots of unhealthy snacks, throughout her making fun of Jay because he would still keep eyeing everything and everyone with his serious detective eyes. During him steering her safely around the place with an arm around her waist or over her shoulder, always anticipating in advance when she wasn't watching her step and pulling her back so that she wouldn't trip or run into something or someone. Because that was what Jay did: Trying to even out the fact that she could be a real klutz on occasion.

All through the process of getting checked in Rianne dragged her feet, doing everything in slow motion to give Jay all the chances in the world to catch up with her after all. It seemed stupid, but something inside her refused to give up hope, although she knew hope could be a tricky sentiment.

Jay would only have to do a quick check-in, as they had packed a big suitcase together that she had already with her as well as the second one with all the gifts. With him not present she had to give that up for an additional charge, but she didn't mind if it meant she still got him by her side at the end of the day.

If he didn't make this flight there was no way he was coming at all. She just knew that.

A little voice in the back of her mind was telling her she should have pushed him more and applied to his guilty conscience to get him to drop work for her. But Rianne knew she couldn't have done that for several reasons:

a) She never wanted to be that girlfriend: the pushy, needy one, begging someone for something

b) Parts of her understood where he was coming from and that he felt obligated to his team and that case as long as it lasted

c) he was a grownup man and didn't need her to tell him what to do or talk him into things he obviously didn't want to do, neither was she his therapist needing to coax things out of him and

d) If he hadn't figured out by now how important this trip was for her, for them, maybe this told a whole different story about Jay she had to take into account.

Rianne felt her heart slowly building a protective wall as well as anger and frustration rising the longer he kept her waiting without even a hint as to what was going on.

***

Jay was stuck, mostly inside himself. At the end of the day he had tangled himself up in such a frenzy of thoughts, inner conflicts and contradictions, it wasn't pretty.