Whatever Occurs: Life, Love, and Loss

Back to Seattle

After you and Ethon walk back into your hotel room, you both pack up all of your belongings so you can head back to Seattle. You get to sleep deeply for ten hours straight before your alarm goes off at six o'clock in the morning.

You and Ethon don't bother to shower, so you gather all of your belongings, eat your breakfast, say goodbye to Roscoe, Fred, and their families; and check out of the hotel. Your flight is at noon, so you do your best not to waste any time after leaving the hotel. Malyssa and her family, you, and Ethon ride with Chesney as she drives you both to the airport in her rental car.

Scott follows suit with Spencer's family; and Tommie is close behind with Brad and Quinton, and Beaudry and his family. After you all are cleared by the TSA, get your luggage checked; and eat brunch with Scott, Anica, Tommie, Dayton, Chesney, and Hub; you hug your siblings and their families goodbye, and tell them that you hope to be back in Scotland in 2022. You and everyone else flying with you waits to board the plane.

Your family boards the plane at 11:45, puts their bags in their cabinets, and gets buckled up for the flight. An hour after it takes off, you decide to scroll through pictures of you and Spencer on your phone. You let Ethon look when he glances at your phone. Then you go through to find several photos of you and your mother.

You hear Malyssa singing what sounded like a Lauren Daigle song. You had always loved the unique, captivating, and all-around beautiful timbre of her voice every time she sings, especially when she sings gospel music. You glance back at her, she looks at you from the side of her eye, then she abruptly stops. She gives you the stink eye when she catches you. You smack yourself upside the head, then remember how Malyssa hated when you would ask her to perform in front of you, Ethon, and whoever was visiting. To this day, she still doesn't take kindly to you putting her on the spot when she was younger.

You hear her whisper to Jeremy, "I'm like, 'I'll sing at your funeral.' I will never do that to the children, not unless they wholeheartedly want to, because as far as I'm concerned, my parents and whomever else they were chatting away with didn't even buy tickets. Doggone it, I should've just charged them money when they put me on the spot!"

Jeremy whispers, "I'm the very same way. When people stare at me as I'm singing, I'll stare them back down. I definitely sound like shit though, unlike you."

You are relieved she didn't think of this when she was younger. You wouldn't have wanted to put her on the spot again, just so she couldn't get rich off of you and Ethon, but solely because you love hearing her singing along with the angels. But you didn't know Malyssa hated that until she told you about her pet peeve just five years ago, and yet you still feel bad.

Ethon eyeballs you after you look back at him. "I tried to tell ya, but nope, you wouldn't listen."

"Oh fuck off."

"You wish!"

You stick your ear buds in and turn on some music on your phone. Then, you are asleep for the rest of the flight.