New Girl

The Flight

 As I sat by the window, staring into the the emptiness, a sort of dew trickled from the glass. I had cried enough the night before and my eyes were dry. A sort of emptiness had befallen me, the unfeeling facade one adopts as a defense mechanism after a moment of hardship. I had never been good at embracing emotions and vulnerability was certainly not something I condoned. I always had to be the brave and grave one in the family. I left sentiment to my sister who had plenty for the both of us; she had always been the most melodramatic, the storm. I praised my self for my composure, my rationality and my impeccable self-control. It created a sort of balance. Now that I watched the drops slide upon the glass, I felt only a vestige of dust from the tears I had previously dropped and swore to myself I would never feel again.

I shut the blinds and looked around. My sister was watching Amelie. A strange specimen of cinematography, if you ask me. Yet, it had fascinated me. This attention to detail, the subtle sensations, the interconnection between characters. It was a realistic surrealism of  a movie. That was why my sister was not enjoying it. She'll switch to Noah Centineo soon enough. I told myself. My mother was listening to Florent Pagny. I knew she was secretly moonstruck over him, she even got my dad to grow a goatee to attempt to design her own Florent. To her right was my father, falling asleep to a Louis De Funes movies. He was a traditionalist, old-school, conservative frenchman. I didn't blame him, so were all lawyers. He drove my liberal mother mad and confused my apolitical sister. I, on the other hand, was uninfluenced by others' political opinions. I was objective. Yet, I knew, I had an affinity for the left; Ecologist, humanitarian and philanthropist ideas became me. I looked back to my own screen. The time was eleven-ten. 

 I had trouble believing in superstitious 'eleven-elevens' after an existential crisis that drove me to atheism and pure rejection of religious doctrine that my family was so fond of. I knew, as soon as I began hinting at my disinterest in religion that my family would react negatively. I didn't care. I believed what I chose to believe. And so did they. Problem is, they simply cannot condone my drifting from their carefully carved paths to explore those that they dared not explore themselves. It was an experiment. I could always take back my faith. I understood as soon as I renounced my beliefs that I was alone in the world. No angels watching over me, no universe to coincide, no star to grant my wishes. The proof? I wished to stay in Paris. There I am on a night flight to London. 

 In precisely forty-nine minutes, I will be in baggage claim. Twenty-minutes after that, I'll be heading for a final security check. And an hour after that, I'll be dropped off by my father's company driver to our new townhouse in Knightsbridge. And after what feels like exactly five minutes after I had gone to sleep, I'll be woken up by a grumpy mother to go to my first day as a Sixth Former at Knights College. And this, if I had allowed myself to feel, would have driven me incredibly anxious.

 An angry rattling shook the floor below me. The wheels were taken out. I had dozed off and we were landing. Amelie was kissing her lover. Florent Pagny ending his album and Louis de Funes getting married. It was the end of it all. I knew it. A heavy feeling had betaken my heart. A sort of longing to go back, perhaps even, denial. I didn't want to open the shutters. I didn't want to see. My throat built up, I knew I was going to cry again. That sensation in my chest was getting stronger by the second. The air-hostess spoke. The captain spoke. Both indistinctly buzzing sounds to tell us we will be shortly landing. I couldn't face it. Yet, the hostess lifted my blind and buckled my seatbelt. I plugged in my earphones and shut my eyes.