Away

The phone call

An hour and a half into the flight, I wake up, startled by movement next to me. My eyes jolt open and I see Kate, the girl next to me, unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Is the flight over?" I ask.

Kate shakes her head. "Nowhere near, you fell asleep. I'm just going to the bathroom."

She smiles back at my tired eyes, which search hers. Just as she starts to move into the aisle, I reply.

"Do you have a phone?"

"Yeah. Did you want to borrow it?"

I go to say yes, but shake my head. "I'm sorry. I just realised. It'll cost a fortune overseas."

Kate waves a dismissing hand at me and slides a sleek black phone out of her jeans pocket. "No, it's cool. This gets billed to my mum's work. I don't pay anything. You can call someone while I'm in the loo if you like,"

She hands me the phone and I grasp the cool metal with my fingers.

What am I doing?

"Thank you." I whisper as she sidles down the aisle.

Some people are so nice.

Before my mind is even registering what's going on, I've tapped in my home number.

No.

My old home number.

I press dial after glancing around ahead and behind me. Nearly everybody is asleep; others are plugged into their music.

I hold the phone between my ear and my shoulder, and lean against the cool glass of the plane window.

The dull ringing tones echo in my ear as I try to distinguish the sea from the clouds below. It's misty and sparkling, all I can see. The clouds knot around each other like fraying ropes.

Somebody picks up the phone.

"Hello? Who is calling?"

I bite my lip, hard. It's mum speaking.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

I notice that her voice is quivering and wobbling like a leaf in a storm. That's my fault.

"... Alexandra? Alexandra, is this you? Where are you calling from?"

I want to, at least, tell her that I hate the name Alexandra, that I'm Alex. I open my mouth to speak, but my tongue is dry and heavy. I can't swallow. I can't talk.

"Alexandra... Oh, my, if this is you..."

Is that... Sympathy?

"We found your note. He's coming to find you. Stay where you are. We will talk this through and we will find a cure, okay? We will get through this. We will beat this."

No. It wasn't really sympathy. It was the honey trap to lure me in. To lure me into thinking there is a cure.

There isn't.

"Your dad is driving around the village but he can't find you. Where are you? Alexandra? Is this definitely you?"

I stay silent and close my eyes, tuning into mum's tinny voice and the static thrumming from the phone.

I imagine what mum is doing. She's probably praying over a bible for my Sickness to be cured, while my note burns in the fireplace in the living room. She's probably already phones a priest or someone to cure me when they find me.

They won't find me.

"Where are you? We need to stop this."

I'm silent.

From my other ear, I hear the telltale quiet flushing of a toilet and the soft click of the plane's bathroom door lock. Roughly... Fifteen seconds before Kate is back.

I feel so bad for doing this with her phone. A stranger's phone. But I put the numbers 141 at the beginning of the phone number, so it should be blocked.

"Alexandra, stop playing games. This is cruel. Your father is worried sick, because you are sick. Come home. We will heal this together."

I hang up.

As Kate comes down the aisle I tap into her call history and delete the phone number: just so there's no evidence. I put the phone on her seat.

"Did you call anyone? They pick up?"

"I decided not to. I don't want to use any credit..." I trail off. She said it wasn't billed to her. "... And I realised... My parents are at work."

Kate nods and she picks up her phone and plugs her earpieces in again.

"Thank you, though." I whisper, just loud enough so she can hear it over the music she's plugged into her ears. She grins and I notice the dimples in her cheeks, underneath a scattering of pale auburn freckles that match her hair.

She looks just like...

No.

I will not think about her.

I can't think about her.

That is in the past. I'm getting away from that.

I can't relive it.