The Fighter

Chapter 41: Free-Fall

"Just wave happily, make it look like nothing's wrong," Xavier was muttering through his surgical mask as he rolled along in front of me.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, waving naturally to our families, now with some concern on my face as we passed the last visible part of the line for security. I took a strong look at him, masked, chaired and oxygen-ed trying to understand as calmly as I could, what might be the matter. 

"My nose is bleeding," he said. 

I exhaled, relieved. "Oh, okay." 

He stopped wheeling himself along and tried to turn himself around. He managed to do a ninety degree turn. "You don't understand, these bleeds don't stop, if I get on the plane I'm worried the pressure in the cabin will make it worse. 

He pulled his mask down to reveal his nose and I gasped. He had quite a bit of blood flowing down his face. "Tissues," he ordered as people began staring more than they had been before. 

I clumsily searched the bag I was holding, opening every neatly organized pocket to find them. "I-I can't find them!" 

"Give me anything, Sophie, come on!" 

I dropped a pill bottle as I desperately searched for something. With everyone watching and all of the pressure I couldn't think. I noticed my hands were shaking, the room was spinning. Then in a moment of genius, I ripped the sleeve of my shirt off and handed it to him. 

He began laughing, loudly, chortling up a storm, thundering. He used the sleeve and laughed some more, and I worried the laughing would make everything worse, but he wasn't worried. He also clearly didn't care about all the staring, as someone across from me handed over the pill bottle I had dropped, and my face got hotter and hotter. He continued giggling like a child.

"Oh come on, it's not that funny," I said, zippering the bag back up, and attempting to get him turned around so we could stop holding up the line. "That oxygen's making you silly." 

"It's not that funny?" His voiced was high-pitched, as he tried to get a glimpse of me as I pushed him along. "Look at you! You look like a cavewoman."

I shook my head bitterly, though I couldn't help smiling when he wasn't looking. And that was the good thing about the wheelchair. He didn't have to see me smiling with him, laughing even, at the jokes he made. I had a reputation to uphold, Sophie Taylor doesn't laugh at Xavier Mason's stupid jokes. 

When we had made it to security, they told us that the wheelchair had to be checked as well. They had offered Xavier one of their own, but he turned it down. 

"Oh darn, no wheelchair?" He was clearly faking concern. "I guess I'm going to have to walk around and use my 'limited' energy." He stood and grabbed my hand, as the assistants at the airport helped us check it in. 

One of the ladies behind us was eyeing him, like she was going to gobble him up. She was twenty-something years-old, blonde and well dressed. Xavier noticed, raising his eyebrows and widening his green eyes, before turning away, his cheeks flushing. 

 I scowled. The nerve of some people. 

He pushed my head playfully as we walked toward our gate, pulling down his mask. "Don't be jealous," he smirked. 

"Don't be jealous," I mimicked, deepening my voice as much as I could, pushing him away from me. The woman was practically a model. 

He laughed, flashing his brilliant smile. "Some women have a thing for sick guys, it happens all the time." He flicked the cannula that wrapped around his ears before pulling the mask back up. 

I crossed my arms, my mind whirring. 

He tugged me into his chest, kissing my head, I could feel him wobbling slightly. "I choose you, and I always will, girlfriend." 

My heart was warmed at that sentiment and I squeezed him tight. "You sure you're okay to walk?"

"I say," he began leading us along, "we ditch the damned thing when we get to Paris." 

I rolled my eyes. "Your mom said--"

"She says a lot of things." He was swinging our hands like we were five, and I could feel that he was invigorated. Even the way he held himself had changed. I could almost see the man that had saved my life on the beach that day; healthy, strong, dignified. 

It was nice to see him like that. 

***

We were one of the first people to board the plane. The steward led us to first class and I couldn't hold back my shock.

"No way!"

Xavier pulled his mask down, his eyes were twinkling. "Thought I'd surprise you." With those words he lifted up the plush armrest that separated our chairs. "These things are like movie theater seats that recline all the way back." 

"Put that thing back down," I said, trying my best to be coy. "This is a lady you're talking to." 

He replaced the armrest with a lustful glare, undermined by his amused smile. I was happy with myself, having gained some sort of "game" since we started this journey together. And he seemed to like it too. 

Take-off was symbolic, and I could tell the both of us had the same feeling. We held each other's hands as the plane sped across the runway. And in that moment right before the jets set in, when the plane was suspended in the air, almost floating, I couldn't help but look right at him. 

If all of it were a movie, the moment would be in slow-motion. Everything would be in free-fall for that fraction of a second, as if we were traveling in space. My hair would be languidly set around my head like an umber crown and the frown that so often rested on Xavier's face would lift away like a mask. Everything in our lives that worked like gravity, that weighed us down, would be cancelled out, and he and I would watch each other transform into beings that were unaffected by Earth's heavy inadequacies. 

Words wouldn't be necessary, our senses no longer dulled by gravity, and our minds whirring with the fearful acknowledgement that nothing was holding us back. All of us, coming to realize we were passengers of this tin sculpture on the verge of barreling toward separate unknowns, at the mercy of a pilot in awe of what he had done. And the universe, just this once, would allow the moment to last longer than it should, so that we could take it all in, admiring the lives we had left behind like astronauts marveling at the entirety of the Earth.

But instead, the rumbling jets set in before all of that could come into focus. I tried to remind myself of the days I spent as child, reaching up to the heavens to touch the clouds that surrounded me then, just inches from my fingers.

"What are  you doing?" 

I pulled my hand from the window, probably glowing like a hot coal. "Nothing." 

Xavier lifted the barrier between our chairs, and snuggled into me, bringing along the blanket he covered himself with. "Good," he said. 

The lights in the cabin dimmed, urging us all to sleep our way across the world. Xavier made it to dreamland before I did, and I tried to feel him dreaming. Every once in a while he'd awake coughing, but he was so tired he'd fall back asleep the second he caught his breath. Then somewhere, in the middle of the Atlantic, I finally drifted off to my own land of dreams. 

...

HI!! We are right on track to publish the Christmas chapter on Christmas!!

<3 Soni2468

This Part's Song: "Worlds on Fire," by Zerbin

We held on through the war
Watching as our world crumbled
And we grew braver than before
(We were) holding up our scares
When we stumbled
And oh it's still such a beautiful life

So we danced in a fount of Parisian merlot
With our head in the clouds
Bodies below in desire
The whole worlds on fire