Escaping to Ireland

Vinessa

We sit in silence, each of us chewing on what little we have left on our plates and chewing on what information we have shared about one another.

"So, have you ever been in love?" I asked, breaking the sad moment.

"That is what you follow this story up with?" he jokingly asks with a small laugh. In a million years, I would never have guessed that I would be talking to an Irish man so candidly on my way to Ireland. On my way home. I shake my head instead of saying anything. "I think there are multiple kinds of loves out there. And everyone is different."

"That was very vague."

"Will have you been? It sounds..." he cuts off what he is saying as he watches me stab the last piece of chicken on his plate. I make a face after I have swallowed. I hate barbecue. "That was uncalled for," he said, searching my plate for anything desirable.

"Please take this," I said, pushing some crumbled-up cheese that I think is blue cheese toward him. Another rule in life I tried to follow was to never eat any unidentified cheese. You learn this lesson quickly after eating goat cheese, not knowing what it is or what it will taste like.

Clarita comes by and takes my tray from me. She doesn't make eye contact with Liam anymore, and when she comes back, she doesn't linger at our seats like she had been doing all day. "Thank you," Liam said after she walked away.

"Your welcome" With the stories of Shawn and Jewel no longer needing to be told, I had no clue how the rest of the six hours would be fulfilled. After all of the first class's trays have been cleared, an announcement comes on stating that Leap Year is today's movie.

"How appropriate" Liam and I both speak at the same time.

"Have you seen Leap Year?" I asked him, astonished.

"I have," he pauses. "I don't know why either."

"I'm a woman. Chick flicks are like chocolate to us," I said, standing to use the restroom. As I am stepping out of the restroom, Liam is standing outside the bathroom, waiting to use it after me.

"Feels good to stand," he said. I step to the right and then to the left as Liam and I dance around each other. Liam, done with the dancing routine, grabs both of my arms, picking me up easily and sitting me down on the other side of him. As he picked me up, I noticed two things: his height and those biceps. I wanted to poke one just to see if it would stay or pop like a balloon. And then I catch Clarita watching us as if she is going to catch us climbing the mile-high club together. She had to hate me. I wanted to tell her it was not like that – that I had just met him. But I'm sure to her I was the same as her, that I already imagined our first date together. But I hadn't done that. Maybe I would have two years ago, but not today, not after Shawn. And I would never be a part of the mile-high club, ever. One, I didn't "sleep" around, and two, no way was it possible for people to do things like that in the small box they called a restroom.

I sit down, plugging my headphones in to watch Leap Year as the starting previews for new and upcoming movies play. Liam takes his time walking back to the seat, each step longer, a walking stretch up in the sky. Gloom falls on his face when he sees the headphones on my head; I pick up the freebees in the front of his seat and hand them to him before he sits down. He puts them on, sighing. Something seemed right to be watching an Irish chick flick for my flight home.

I grab my complimentary blanket from in front of me and snuggle in for the movie.  I was still shivering from time to time. They could have turned the heat up, but I knew in coach it was a nightmare being bundled up next to people you didn't know, sweating. Liam leaned forward, taking his blanket out of the plastic wrapper, I am waiting for him to use it, but instead, his left arm reaches over with the blanket in his hand. He pushes the corner of the blanket behind my right shoulder and does the same to my left. Liam was tucking me in. I was five the last time someone had tucked me in.