Cheating in Love [Completed]

Chapter 1

"Boarding the plane now," he said. "I'll call you when we touch down, okay?"

"Okay," she said. "I can't wait to see you."

"I love you too," she said.

"Love you too," his voice dropped to little more than a whisper, as though the airport security would hear him and confiscate his feelings.

"Bye."

"Bye."

Sawyer hesitated to move the phone away from his ear. He knew that across the Atlantic, she was doing the same. Silence hung on the line for a heartbeat too long, and the line clicked dead as they called once more to board the flight to New York. Sawyer shoved his phone into his pocket, shouldered his bag, and stepped down the terminal to board the plane.

He could count on one hand the number of times he had been on a plane before; it was a little more than his wallet keeping him from flying. The first time the plane had lifted off from the runway, he had stared wide-eyed as the ground began to rush away before bursting into tears and screaming the entire ascent. His parents and the flight attendants had tried in vain to calm him down until the pilot had him brought up to the cockpit, where he was able to show Sawyer that there was no danger - he had the plane completely under control.

Sawyer slipped down the aisle to his seat. He was in the back of the plane on the left side by the window. Sitting down, he was reminded of the jolting, sickening feeling he got last time he flew.

A few minutes later, the passenger who had the seat next to him sat down. He turned to Sawyer with a grin on his face, "Hey. I'm Beckett."

"Sawyer."

"Oh, you're British," somehow, Beckett's grin widened. "Why're you visiting America?"

"My girlfriend lives there," Sawyer offered. He was prepared to drop the conversation there and ignore his seatmate for the remainder of the trip, but the American was clearly of a different mindset.

"My family lives in New York," Beckett said. Sawyer nodded, turning to stare out the window in an attempt to escape the rest of the conversation, but Beckett continued, "I'm going home for a little while to visit them before I return to England for my last year of University."

"Where do you go to school?" Sawyer prompted uninterestedly.

"Cambridge," Beckett said. "I'm pursuing my bachelor's degree in physics. It's a beautiful school. Have you ever been there?"

"I graduate next year with a dual major in art history and English," Sawyer stated nonchalantly. Beckett's eyes widened a little, but before he could respond, the captain's voice instructed the plane to power down electronics and buckle their seat belts.

Sawyer's breathing quickened a little. He stared out the window as if that would help the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. His hands were cold and clammy. He clenched the armrests, knuckles turning white. His jaw was tight. His heart skipped a beat; the plane had started down the runway.

I'm not ten anymore, he reminded himself. He could feel his blood running cold, his heart pounding in his ears. His face was pale—he could tell without looking at the reflection of a wide-eyed young man, his whole body shaking with rapid breaths.

"So why'd you choose to dual major?" Beckett asked. Sawyer turned to face the American and found Beckett's eyes carefully studying his face. Sawyer's cheeks flushed red. "It's hard enough keeping my grades up with only one major, I can't imagine two."

"Uh..." Sawyer knew he was expected to respond but his mind was as clear as the airport as it blurred past the windows. He felt a jolt. They had lifted off and the world he knew was shrinking away beneath him. His breathing was so shallow it hardly reached his lungs.

"Not ten," Sawyer repeated under his breath. He didn't realize he was saying it aloud until Beckett asked him what he'd said.

"Ah," Sawyer tried to make a smooth recovery, "I said I'm not sure." He turned to face Beckett and again found the American's eyes carefully studying him like an artist studying his muse. His hands were shaking, even as he held on tightly to the armrests.

"You're not sure?" Beckett scoffed jokingly, a grin spreading across his face once again. "How can you be 'not sure' about what prompted you to take on a near-suicidal course load?" Beckett casually rested his arms on his own armrests.

Sawyer felt the warmth of Beckett's arm brush against his. Their eyes met and Beckett offered a gentle smile. Sawyer's hands unclenched his breathing steadied as the color seeped back into his fingertips.

"I mean, both of the subjects are fantastic," Sawyer said. "I loved them both while I was in school, and I can't imagine not studying one of them." Despite himself, he was growing to like this other Cambridge student.

"Nothing quite like Jane Austen and Shakespeare, I suppose," Beckett said, his grin subsiding only slightly. A thoughtful look crossed his face and Sawyer caught himself admiring the way the light reflected off his eyes, trying to picture how he could capture that same sort of luminance in a drawing. He shook the thought away.

"But physics," Sawyer commented. "It's just scientific maths. There's nothing special or interesting about it."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," Beckett said, the corners of his eyes crinkling as his smile widened again. "Physics is an art form. Wait, I'm talking to an artist. Scratch that. Physics is the artistic version of math. It explains everything you see around you—the way colors work and how light reflects. None of that would exist without physics."

"But it's boring," Sawyer protested.

"Shakespeare is boring," Beckett countered.

"I study more than Shakespeare," Sawyer wrinkled his nose.

"And I study more than optics," Beckett said.

"At least I speak understandable English," Sawyer joked. "I don't go on about the quantum mechanics of Schrödinger's cat and the physics of particle-wave duality."

"Because 'to thine own self be true,' makes so much sense," Beckett said.

"More sense than the idea of negative motion," Sawyer shot back. Beckett laughed, putting Sawyer more at ease.

The seatbelt sign clicked off. Sawyer spared a quick glance out the window. They had reached their cruising altitude. They were so high up. If the engine failed, they would be falling for a long time.

Beckett nudged him gently and he pulled the window shut. His eyes trailed slowly over Beckett's cheekbones, hesitating a moment when he realized Beckett was eyeing him.

He turned his attention away from the attractive American next to him and found his mind drifting to Sophie, her blonde hair growing out brown at the roots. He pictured the way her nose curved slightly upwards at the tip and her eyes a brown so dark it was hard to see her pupils.

His mind wandered until it found its way to the day they first met. It wasn't just because of her accent that she stuck out like a sore thumb: her jacket was an American flag print. She smiled uneasily at the class when she walked in late. She wasn't used to having her schedule in military time. She took a seat in the back of the class, next to Sawyer.

"Hi," she had introduced herself to him in a whisper, "I'm Sophie. I'm an exchange student from Brooklyn."

"New York," he had responded—a statement rather than a question.

"Yes," she had responded cheerfully and turned back to her notes, satisfied that he knew where Brooklyn was. She's strange, he remembered thinking. Even for an American. 

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