DOMAIN

C H A P T E R 41

~ Warm Welcoming ~

The trip from Italy to Chicago is roughly over nine hours. After leaving Wyatt at the airport, I cried myself into a drowsy state until I eventually welcomed sleep to take over me.

I've only been awake for a few minutes and the once light-filled plane was now dimly lit by the scattered lights from inside.

"How much longer do we have?" I asked a gentleman who was making his way up the aisle from the back of the plane.

"About five more hours, give or take," he kindly replied.

"Thank you," I smiled relaxing back into my seat.

After restless minutes of trying to entertain myself, I decided to head to the bathroom.

Once inside the cramped space, I shut the door behind me and gasped when I noticed my reflection in the mirror.

The whites of my eyes were now a deep shade of red and my eyes were slightly puffy from crying earlier.

I turned the cold water on and splashed the refreshing water onto my face trying to subdue the puffy redness.

After taking the time to pull myself back together the best I could, I exited the bathroom and returned back to my seat.

"Here is your dinner, ma'am," a different gentleman said as he placed a white plate on the miniature table in front of me.

"Oh, thank you," I replied not wanting to tell him I wasn't in the mood to eat.

A fresh garden salad with chicken covered the plate with a small container, of what I'm assuming was vinaigrette dressing, rested on the side.

I drizzled the dressing over the salad and used my fork to mix the dressing in. Not wanting to be ungrateful, I tried to eat as much of the salad as I could but I mostly ate the pieces of chicken and tomatoes.

The pilot told me before we took off that I had to turn my phone on airplane mode but I was still able to call and text from my phone in flight.

Grateful for this piece of information, I retrieved my phone from the bag next to me and dialed Alex's number.

"Please tell me you haven't landed yet?" Alex blurted once she answered the phone.

"You seriously forgot me at the airport?" I said trying to contain my laughter.

"Crap! I could have sworn you told me you were landing around seven tonight," she said as a bunch of curse words thrown around as she probably was hurrying to gather her things.

"Alex, I'm joking," I said as I started laughing.

"I still have about four hours left," I told her once my laughter died down.

"You know just for that, I'm going to purposefully forget you," she huffed but I knew deep down she was laughing too.

"Well guess I'm sleeping at the airport tonight," I said shrugging my shoulder even though she couldn't see me.

"I hope you have a warm blanket. I heard airports are freezing at night," she playfully said.

"Sure don't. I'll just freeze to death and it will be your fault," I replied.

"I mean, I guess I could come pick you up. I wouldn't want Wyatt to kill me for leaving his precious girlfriend to freeze to death," she said chuckling.

At the sound of Wyatt's name, my heart was tugged into the lonely realization of being away from Wyatt. I tried to make myself forget about how hard it was leaving him but hearing his name quickly brought back the miserable emotions.