Flight K109 (#1 ¬ Aiello Racing Series )

Mia James

The final bell rings, and the cheers can be heard throughout the school. Everyone gets up off their chairs and run out the halls, cheering and clapping. School is out, summer's in. Everyone's celebrating. I watch as my classmates pour out of classes, faces full of excitement and joy, bliss and exhaustion, amused and serene. There are even a few year 13s all weepy about finishing school. Almost everyone is thrilled that school is out for the summer.

Except me. I might be the only person in a five kilometer radius who isn't absolutely blissful about summer holidays. Frankly, for the last two years, summer has been an absolute nightmare.  I take my first flight of many tomorrow, Heathrow to Tallinn, Estonia. And after that I'll be flying between Estonia and Italy every week. Not even every two weeks, every week.

Sometimes I wish my school kept summer boarders too.

I take the important stuff out of my locker and make my way to my dorm, where Andrea and Claire are already packing their suitcases. Andrea and Claire are my best friends, but they get to stay in England and hangout all summer. Without me. Reason 2 why I'm not a fan of summer holidays.

I throw myself onto my bed and power on my phone before going through my messages and checking socials for any news. I can hear my two friends rushing around me in a flurry, searching for lost items and throwing away useless ones, packing like it's now or never.

"Shouldn't you start packing Mia?" Claire asks, "Haven't you got a flight to catch tomorrow?"

"Yeah.." I mumble

"Come on Mia," Andy says, in the voice that tells me I'm not going to like what she says next, "I know you're not very fond of the arrangements this summer, but you need to start accepting the fact that it's not going to change."

 "And come on, it's only this summer, next year you'll be 18 and you can stay wherever you choose." C adds

"That will be the day." I agree

Suddenly my phone slips out of my hand as Claire and Andy grab me by the ankles and drag me off my bed. I cling onto the sheets in attempt to hold them off, but instead end up pulling them and my phone clean off the bed, ending up in a mess of shirts blankets and limbs on the floor.

I can hear Claire and Andrea giggling as I untangle myself from the wreckage and Andy rolls my big suitcase towards me.

"Look," Claire starts, "we'll make you a deal. If you manage to pack a quarter of your stuff and clean out your desk, Andy and I will do the rest of the work for you. Deal?"

I sit on the floor, contemplating the deal, they have no reason to be doing this for me, and having three quarters of my stuff packed for me would be nice.....

"Deal." I say, shaking Claire's hand and pulling myself up

"Good. Because the prefects are coming around in the evening and if we're not packed and ready by then we're in trouble."

Ah, so that was their angle. Sneaky bastards.

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Three hours later we were all on my bed with bags of sweets and crisps laying between us and Andy's laptop playing '10 Things I Hate About You' on a desk chair in front of the bed. 

"I love this part," Claire says through tears as Kat read her poem, "this entire trope always makes me so sad."

Claire's a huge softie, she loves anything with romance, flowers or puppies. Or all three at once if possible. And she's had a stack of classic princess books stashed under her bed for as long as I can remember. She's moved on to more adult romance books now, but I still catch her reading them from time to time.

I hand her yet another tissue for her tears and glance at Andy, who doesn't seem even mildly emotioned by the film. 

"I think it's dumb." she says, "I mean, this could all be resolved so quickly if Kat had just stopped and listened instead of running off. It's really not that hard.....or realistic."

Claire is pretty much the opposite of Andy, Andy is purely logical, she hates it when things get overcomplicated when a simple solution exists. Claire and I learnt this when we watched a Rom-com that had the miscommunication trope during third year and Andy almost threw a chair at the laptop out of frustration. From that day on, Claire and I thoroughly researched the movies we watched beforehand. 

"I'm really going to miss you guys." I say out of the blue, surprising myself a little bit

Andy pauses the film and both girl turn to face me.

"We'll be right here Mia." Claire says

"And you can always call us." Andy agrees

I shake my head, "It's not the same......you remember how much I missed you guys last year, and I called you practically every day then. What's to say this year's going to be any different?"

"There's no guarantee. But hey, maybe you'll meet someone, make a friend to keep you company."

"Where?" I ask, "I don't know anyone there and I only speak english, people there rarely speak decent english. Where am I supposed to meet someone, the supermarket? Not like I go out much anyways."

"I don't know Mia," Andy sighed, "But let's face it you're not going to meet anyone regardless of your language skills if you stay cooped up inside all day. You just have to try, put yourself out there. You never know."

Put yourself out there.

"I'll think about it." I say noncommittally, "But if I get kidnapped and murdered it's entirely your faults. You'll be contacted by my mother's lawyer."

My last comment sends us all into fits and giggles. And I can't help but start missing them already.

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The next day I wait alone.

I wait alone outside the school as  classmates get picked up by parents. I wait alone at the airport for my flight. I wait alone for a cab in front of a car park at Tallinn airport. I wait alone for my father's arrival in his empty house.

I wait all day. And I should really get used to it, but I still end up wondering why I do it alone.

Dad gets home from work around six, I'm already waiting for him on the sofa by then. My dad's a data analyst for some big corporation, he's English, but when he and my mum got divorced a couple years back he got a job offer for a company here in Estonia and just couldn't pass up the opportunity. 

Personally, I think the main reason he took the job was to escape my mum, and I don't blame him. With all the stress she had during the divorce and the take off of her security company she was a wreck to be around. Constantly lashing out at us and generally making life a living hell.

Still. She didn't deserve what happened with the affair.

He puts his satchel down on the table and gives me a hug.

"Hey Moonpie. How was your flight?"

"Good, nothing special." I say quietly

"That's good. And how was school, everything still okay?"

"Yeah dad, everything's okay at school."

We have dinner together, for the first time in months. I find it a bit sad when I realize I can count the number of times I've seen my dad in the last year on a single hand. But this is my reality, I still haven't totally gotten used to it yet.

I don't know if I will.