Elena and Caroline: A Holiday Romance

Chapter 4: Landing

     Bracing themselves for imminent impact, Elena and Caroline held each other's hands, gripping tight, outside the clouds rose high above the airplane, the green and grey colours of the ground soon turned into the flat bottom area of the earth and as the turbulence of the plane got heavier and heavier the ground pulled its way up closer; the journey was nearing its end.

*****
Flashback, 2015
    Of course, the plane ride wasn't anything like the one that Elena embarked on 20 years ago; the buildings were immensely huge and could practically  smash straight through the plane if it were closer to touching them. Elena sat in the middle of an accountant, who was sitting to her right, and a sitting to her left was a medium-height, twenty-two year old looking guy with curled, blonde hair, he sat there, watching Elena like a hawk and as though she was the first real, beautiful girl he'd ever seen; his phone screen saver had a picture of Taylor Swift on it, Elena could see it and she was sure that he was single and never had a girlfriend, but listened to Taylor Swift and kept a picture of her for inspirational hope that he would meet someone as charismatically roping- pulling him towards her.

      Elena tried her best to neglect his deep ogling, green eyes, she was going over her stories that she was about to present soon after she'd landed and gotten her room at the hotel. As chance would have it, Elena also had out in front of her pictures of her friends, growing up and having fun; one picture in particular was her favourite: 
     Taken on Halloween day 2000 when Elena, Bonnie, Caroline, Matt and Tyler were eight and Jeremy was only six. The six of them had their costumes on; Bonnie was dressed as a corpse bride; she wanted to be a witch, though, Caroline dressed herself as the wicked queen from Snow White; she hadn't stopped liking Disney entirely, Elena chose to dress as Snow White so that she and Caroline would be the story's duo, Matt went dressed as a beggar boy, Tyler as a werewolf; ironic that he unknowingly was one, and Jeremy was dressed up as a zombie; he loved zombies. 

       All of their parents brought them back to the Lockwood's residence after they'd finished trick-or-treating, together they see all grouped together in the living room and Caroline's mom and dad brought the camera with them, they took the picture and everyone laughed after seeing it; Caroline as the evil queen made an evil stare at Elena, Elena made an innocent smile; she was the only one who was smiling in the picture, Jeremy had his mask off and looked almost like he was crying, his cheeks were red and he looked frightened, Matt just kept his face straight and free of any emotion, Tyler and Bonnie both held hands and made monster-faces at the camera. 

    Elena was one of the few people who still had the picture, she kept it safe and brought it with her whoever she went away, she sat there ignoring all of the other pictures that she'd brought, not moving through the pile in her hand like a slide show.

   Had she maybe had more time and a chance to bring her friends then her hands would have been packed full of more memories. She longed for some company.

   Unexpectedly, she later ran into her old friend Elijah a couple of hours later

*****
Present time:
Elena hadn't encountered Elijah on the plane then like she had now. This was the last thing she'd expected to happen in a long time. Was it fate, she wondered. No, it couldn't be, at least not after how their last encounter had ended, not just some way for her to be thrown back into meeting the same person again as a way of reconnecting and maybe finding her way back to him.
If it was then it should have been this way a long time ago.

The wheels had bumped against the rock-hard ground as the plane finally sped across the road like a car, the insides and every passengers seat rocked and ricked at the shaking sensation that the plane was undergoing having now landed in Orlando, Florida. The holiday was set to begin now.