Page 20 of The Time It Takes
A sense of Deja vu rushes over me and I nearly lose the granola bar I ate in the cab on the way here.
“First time?” A soft voice asks from beside me. I look to my left to find a woman with graying hair. I think people call it salt and pepper hair. I watch her stuff her bag underneath her seat.
I shake my head but then realize she can’t see me because she’s not looking at me. “No,” I tell her.
She clicks the belt across her lap, and I do the same. I keep my book bag in my lap, hugging it to my chest. The woman stares at me for a moment in consideration.
“I’m not a big fan of flying either,” she states. I notice out of the corner of my eye that she’s waving a pill in the air. I let my eyes meet hers and she shrugs. I watch her as she places the pill on her tongue and downs it with her coffee.
“Want one?” she asks me.
“No, thank you,” I decline her politely, even though my body tenses.
She shrugs again. “Suit yourself, kid.” She pulls a mask over her eyes that I thought was a headband and by the time the plane starts to take off, she’s snoring.
Kid.
My eyes slam shut, and I clench my fists so hard that I’m surprised my palms don’t bleed as we descend into the air.
Once I decide that it’s safe to make sudden movements, I reach into my bag and grab the book I brought with me. I read until the lines blur into each other and the sound of the air conditioner blowing inside the plane plays me a lullaby.
Everything eventually fades into one. The cool air blowing in my face becomes the sweet breeze I feel standing by the ocean.
My last thought is of a butterfly with a broken wing and then I fall asleep dreaming of a promise I couldn’t keep.
LONELINESS CAN’T TOUCH A CROWDED ROOM. OR CAN IT?
Ten years ago
"Didyouseethepostcard mom sent us in the mail yesterday?” I called out to Ben who was in the living room while I put the dishes into the dishwasher.
“Nope, and I don’t care.”
I pretended he did. “They’re in New Orleans. Can you believe that?” I always told her I wanted to go there someday, so I wasn’t sure how I felt about her going without me.
She had promised she’d take me for my birthday last year. I chalked it up to it slipping her mind since the idea of her not caring hurt worse.
I heard the swooshing of Ben’s feet dragging against the wood floor as he walked into the kitchen just as I placed the last cup on the rack.
“I’ll take you,” he suggested casually, reaching into a cabinet.
I closed the dishwasher and turned to face him, leaning my hip against the counter. Lifting an eyebrow I said, “I’m going to hold you to that.”
He was wearing his usual black t-shirt and dirty blue jeans that he wore to work at the mechanic shop. He tossed a handful of Cheez-Its into his mouth. “I’ll make it a graduation gift.”
My shoulders dropped. “But that’s so far away,” I pouted. It was in a few months, but still. I’d have started packing right then if he told me to.
I was so ready to graduate this year but figuring out what came after was an entirely new problem I wasn’t ready to face. Sometimes I was jealous of my mother, who got to see a different part of the world every day while practically leaving my brother and me here to rot—metaphorically. I thought we took care of ourselves just fine.
A lot of the students acted like I was the luckiest girl in the world to not have parents who stuck around all the time. I always smiled and pretended to agree. When really, it hurt. It made me feel alone. Ben acted like he didn’t care, but I always thought he might have cared more than I did.
Ben ignored my desperation. “All good things are worth waiting for, kid.”
I rolled my eyes at him, and he only chuckled in response. I shoved my hand into the box and grabbed a handful of cheesy goodness. “Patience is not one of my virtues,” I reminded him while throwing one into my mouth. Then added, “At least not in this case.”
My brother raised me from the time I was eleven. He was only sixteen. A lot of the time we were all each other had. We’ve grown so accustomed to it. So much so that when our mother did show her face, we still sat together and united in a way that shouldn’t have to happen. I didn’t think my mother had a bubble. She was always everywhere and yet to us; she was completely nowhere. It was hard to keep up with her locations. When she did come around, she pretended to be the mother we needed when we were kids. It was sort of a skit she had going for six or so years.
We weren’t kids anymore, but sometimes it would have been nice to go home and tell my mom about my day. To talk to her about boys or have someone to bring me soup when I was sick. Ben had always been that person for me. He was always there to take care of me since I could remember. I was certain he always would.
