The Trouble with Flying
“Oh, I’d love to, but I need to get home right away. We’re heading to the farm just now. Spending the week there.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Mom says. “But why are you leaving so late? Why not go tomorrow morning?”
Matt shrugs. “I don’t know. My mom wants to. We were supposed to leave earlier today, but I told them I wanted to see Sarah before we left. Those three weeks without her were just too long.” He pulls me into a sideways hug and kisses the top of my head while I try to wipe the look of confusion and I-just-tasted-something-bad off my face.
“Sarah! My favourite middle daughter!” Dad calls from the lounge before striding into the entrance hall and greeting me with a hug. “I hope you videoed your entire visit to the Science Museum.”
I pull out of the hug and say, “Darn, I knew I forgot something.” At the look of disappointment on his face, I quickly add, “Relax, Dad. Jules and I did at least five mini interviews at various places inside the museum. She was more than happy to stand in front of my phone and act all goofy while talking about science.
“Anyway,” I continue, “Matt needs to go now, so I’m gonna say goodbye, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”
My parents take the hint and disappear into the lounge to give me a moment alone with Matt. I turn to him, and I’m about to ask what’s going on between us, but he takes my face in both hands and presses his mouth against mine before I can get a word out. He tastes of familiarity and … guilt. Because the last person I kissed wasn’t him. I try to relax against him and remember all the butterflies and goosebumps I used to get when he kissed me, but he’s already pulling away. “I missed you,” he says, then adds a quick kiss to my nose. “And now I’ve gotta go.”
I clench my fists at my sides as he turns away. SAY SOMETHING! “Matt, I’m … I’m a little confused. The night before I left …”
“Yes,” he says, stopping and turning back. “Yes, I know.” He looks down. “We were both angry. We both said very hurtful things we ended up regretting, and … well, now that we’ve had a few weeks to cool off, I think we should just put it behind us, you know?” He raises his eyes to mine and gives me an encouraging smile. “All couples fight. It’s normal. There’s no reason we can’t get back to the way things used to be between us.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “We’re good together, Sarah. I’d hate to lose what we have.”
He gives me one last hug, and I mumble, “O-okay,” because somehow it doesn’t feel like he left much else for me to say.
“Anyway, I need to go. I’ll see you on Friday morning.” He ducks out the front door and heads down the path while I try to figure out what he’s talking about.
“Friday morning?” I call after him.
“Yeah, I’m coming back to pick you up to take you to the farm.” He looks over his shoulder and, at the blank look on my face, rolls his eyes. “Grandpa’s ninetieth, remember? The party’s next weekend? I told you about it months ago.”
“Uh, yeah.” I do remember, but for some reason I’d thought it was happening after Christmas. “Okay, see you then.” I lean inside and press the button to close the gate. When I look back out, Sophie is running up the driveway.
“Hello, sisi!” she shouts, then just about collides into me. I wrap my arms around my younger sister, and we do a kind of bouncy hug thing that starts us both giggling.
“Where’d you just come from?” I ask her once we’ve recovered from our laughter.
“I was down the road at Braden’s.”
I raise my hands to make quote marks in the air. “You mean ‘that boy’?”
Sophie groans and closes the front door. “Yeah, Mom still doesn’t like him that much.”
She helps me carry my luggage down the passage to my bedroom, where I see a brown paper bag sitting on the bed. I open the bag and look inside. “Biltong! Fantastic!” I stick my hand in and remove a few pieces—finely sliced, just the way I like it—of the dried meat. “I’ve been so lus for biltong the whole time I was away.”
“I know,” says Sophie. “You mentioned it on Facebook, so I told Mom.”
I munch on the salty, spicy snack and mumble, “You rock.”
Sophie smiles sweetly and says again, “I know.” She pushes her blonde hair over her shoulder, then holds her hand out, palm up.
Jules and I both have dark hair like our parents, but somehow Sophie wound up blonde. She used to get upset about it when she was little—‘Why don’t I look like the rest of you?’—and Jules would tell her every time that she’d always secretly wished she had Sophie’s beautiful golden locks. That would inevitably lead to Sophie begging someone to tell her the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and by the time that was finished, she’d always forgotten she was upset in the first place.
I shake the paper bag over Sophie’s hand until several pieces of biltong fall out. “So that’s why you told Mom about my craving,” I say. “You knew you’d score some for yourself.”
Sophie smiles, but doesn’t say anything.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Mom says, appearing suddenly in the doorway. “Don’t fill up on biltong. We’re having dinner soon. Aunt Maggie and Uncle Tom are almost here.”
She hurries away—probably back to the kitchen—and Sophie sticks a few more pieces into her mouth. The sneaky look on her face reminds me of Julia, which sends an unhappy lurch through me, which then gets me thinking about Aiden, which, in turn, twists my insides further.
I push the thought of either of them from my mind. “Want to see all the cool stuff I got overseas?” I say to Sophie.
“Yes, definitely.” She sits cross-legged on my bed while I unzip my suitcase, and even though I’ve never really connected with my younger sister the way I have with Julia, I’m so glad to have her right now.
***
When Aunt Maggie and Uncle Tom have left, and everyone else has gone to bed, I find myself alone in my bedroom. The excitement of photographs and travel stories and handing out all the gifts I bought has passed. Julia’s absence and Aiden’s absence and the inevitability of having to return to a university degree I don’t even like after Christmas settle over me like one of those heavy apron things they cover you with when you have an X-ray at the dentist.
I finish unpacking my clothes, throwing most of them into a pile near the door to wash in the morning. When I get to the bottom of my carry-on suitcase, I slowly remove my notebook. I stand up and rub my thumb over the shiny, paisley-patterned cover. I flip through it—pages and pages of scribbled words squished close together—before opening the bottom drawer of my desk and tossing the notebook inside. I gather the rest of my notebooks from my bookshelf and add them to the drawer, then slam it shut. I don’t want to see inside those notebooks again. I don’t want to read my amateurish scribbles. They almost caused me to miss a flight, and—far worse—they caused all the hurtful things Matt and I said to each other the night before I left.
When I’ve finished unpacking and changed into pyjamas—summer pyjamas! No more climbing into bed covered in at least four different layers!—I open the lid of my ancient laptop and turn it on. I wait patiently while the aged beast grumbles, whirs, and blows hot air in its attempt to start up. After several minutes, it seems to be alive and ready. I open the browser and head to Facebook. I scroll through the news feed for a few minutes, but no matter how many videos of cute toddler relatives or captioned pictures of weird cats or random status updates I see, I can’t stop my eyes from continually moving up to the search bar at the top of the page.
Aiden. I want to search for Aiden. The problem is, I don’t know his surname. I caught a glimpse of the name tag on his luggage, but all I remember is that his surname ends in ison. I think. Which doesn’t exactly help.
Maybe it’s better that I don’t know his full name. After all, it feels like it might be wrong to search for him. Like in some weird way I’m cheating on Matt.
Okay, look, I tell myself. You thought you and Matt were no longer together when you kissed Aide
n, so you didn’t really do anything wrong there. And he technically kissed you, not the other way around. And all you want now is to be friends with him. Nothing wrong with looking him up on Facebook just for that.
I open a new tab and go to Google. I hesitate, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” I whisper to myself.
Before I can change my mind, I type surnames ending in “ison” into the search bar. I scan the results that come up, but I don’t see anything too helpful. I was hoping for a list or something. I look at a few articles and pick out some surnames—Addison, Morrison, Bettison, Madison—before returning to Facebook. I try each surname paired with the name Aiden, but I don’t find the guy I’m looking for.
“It’s just not meant to be,” I mutter to myself. I close the laptop with a mixture of disappointment and relief settling in my stomach. I climb into bed with my phone—which is about a century ahead of my laptop in terms of technology—and open the email app. I saw an email from Livi when I was scrolling through messages at the airport, and I think I could do with some best friend love right now. I smile at the words in the subject line: You smell nice. Livi likes to title her emails with weird statements that have nothing to do with the content, just to make sure nobody misses them. I’m amazed half the messages I’ve received from her haven’t ended up in the Spam folder.
I tap the screen to open her email.
From: Alivia Howard
Sent: Sat 14 Dec, 8:13 pm
To: Sarah Henley
Subject: You smell nice
One week and counting! Woohoo! I am SO glad this year is almost over—I never want to see another German brat in my life. And BOY do I have a story to tell you! A story involving a BOY, actually ;-) I don’t think even your made-up stories can top this one! We need to book a poolside date SOON so I can tell you all about it.
xx Livi
_____________________________
From: Sarah Henley
Sent: Sun 15 Dec, 10:34 pm
To: Alivia Howard
Subject: Re: You smell nice
Oh, I think I have a story that might top yours. And mine isn’t made-up either!
_____________________________
From: Sarah Henley
Sent: Sun 15 Dec, 10:37 pm
To: Julia Henley
Subject: Never again shall you mock the travel toothbrush
Jules! You will never guess what happened to me on the plane …
_____________________________
Harrison!
I wake up on Friday morning with the name on the tip of my tongue, and I’m convinced it belongs to Aiden. I know I caught a glimpse of the label on his bag, and when I close my eyes, I can clearly see an ‘H’ after his first name. I guess my brain just needed a few days to remember that detail—or it could be that after a few days of obsessing, my brain manufactured a false memory while I was sleeping.
To prove to myself that I haven’t been obsessing over Aiden, and that I don’t care whether I’ve remembered his surname correctly or not, I intentionally bypass my laptop on the way to the shower. It already feels about five hundred degrees hotter than any day should ever have the right to be at 8 a.m., so I turn the shower tap until the water is as cold as it will go. Afterwards, I take my time choosing a pretty summer dress. I eat breakfast slowly, make my bed, and start packing my bag for a weekend at Matt’s grandparents’ farm—all while pretending half my brain isn’t focused on the laptop in the corner of my room, as if it has some magnetic influence over my thoughts. I choose a pair of shorts, another dress, some summer pyjamas that are appropriate to wear in front of other people—not my old-enough-to-be-transparent nightie with the cartoon cow and Over the moooooooon written on it—and then try to remember which of my three bikinis Matt likes the most. Because I’m supposed to be thinking of him, not Aiden. Matt is my boyfriend. Matt is the guy who loves me. Matt is the one I’ll probably spend the rest of my—
“Oh, this is ridiculous.” I drop the tangle of bikinis onto my bed and rush to the corner of my room. I sit down at the desk and open the lid of my laptop. The machine whirs for a moment or two, then blinks out of hibernation mode and shows the last page I was on: my email. I open a new tab and navigate to Facebook. The moment the site loads, I type ‘Aiden Harrison’ into the search bar. A second passes, and then a whole list of Aiden Harrisons show up. I lean forward, examining the tiny profile picture next to each name. Not him … not him … not him … not him … Is that … ? My heart does an uncomfortable double beat thing and a tiny squeal escapes my throat as I recognise the fifth Aiden Harrison.
It’s him! I’ve found him!
Okay. Breathe. Calm down. I push my wheeled chair away from the desk and pat out a random rhythm across my knees. What am I doing? Am I going to send him a friend request? And then what? What if he accepts? What if he doesn’t? What if he’s not using his phone or a computer or anything while he’s on holiday and he only sees the friend request when he gets home and doesn’t even remember who I am?
But he is using his phone, I remind myself. I remember returning to the Häagen-Dazs table in Dubai airport with two cups of ice cream in my hands and seeing him frown at it as though he didn’t like what he saw there.
Okay, one step at a time. I reach for the edge of the desk and pull myself back towards it. I’ll check out his profile—whatever I can see without actually being his friend—and then decide. Ignoring the fact this probably makes me an instant stalker, I click on his name.
Once his page has loaded, I can see his profile picture in more detail. He’s smiling and looking at something outside the frame of the photo, and in the background colourful houses sprout from a mountainside that ends with a sheer drop into a blue, blue sea. Scrolling down his page reveals the photos he’s used as profile pictures in the past—some group shots, a few arbitrary pictures that don’t include him at all, and several with his arm around a pretty dark-haired girl. The most recent photo with her is dated eight months ago, though, so I’m hoping that means he isn’t with her anymore. Not that I have any right to hope for things like that, considering I still have a boyfriend.
I scroll back up to the top of the page and stare at the ‘Add Friend’ button. I move my mouse over it but don’t click it. I try to figure out what I want from Aiden. It can’t be more than friendship, of course, since he’ll be returning to England soon—and there’s Matt. A guy I want to be with. Because people don’t just throw away two-year relationships for random guys they met on a plane and think they had some connection with. So … I’ll click the button, wait for him to accept the friendship request, then tell him that even though I really enjoyed the kiss, I actually have a boyfriend and—no, wait, I won’t tell him I enjoyed the kiss. I’ll just say that I have a boyfriend, but I’d like to still be friends with Aiden. Because I enjoyed chatting to him. And it felt like we connected on some level. Or whatever. I’ll figure it out when he responds.
I tap my finger absently on the edge of my laptop and continue staring at the button. I stare at it for so long that I don’t realise how much time has passed until the gate buzzer sounds and Sophie shouts, “Matt’s here!”
My head jerks towards the open doorway of my bedroom, as if Matt might already be standing there watching what I’m doing. I turn back to the screen and the ‘Add Friend’ button. I clench my fists over the keyboard.
Come on, just make a decision. Make a decision.
I hit the button, then jump up and back away from the computer as if it might bite me.
“Hey, Soph,” Matt says from the entrance hall. “How’s it going?”
I dart forward and slam the lid of my laptop shut.
It’s done. Stop thinking about it now. Finish packing your bag.
Matt appears in my doorway just as I shove all three bikinis into my suitcase. I’m normally a much neater pa
cker, but I don’t exactly have time right now. “Hey,” Matt says. He crosses the room and gives me a quick hug and a kiss. “You almost ready?”
“Yeah, just give me a few more minutes.” I grab a book from my bedside table and slide it carefully into the top pocket of my suitcase. I might be happy shoving certain things into my bag, but books are not one of them.
“Babe, come on,” Matt says. “I sent you a message when I left, and it took me, like, three hours to get here. I thought you’d be packed by now.”
“Yeah, I know. I got side-tracked. But I’m almost finished, I promise.” I duck past him and hurry to the bathroom to pack my toiletries.
Ten minutes later, I’ve said goodbye to my family and am wheeling my small suitcase—the same one I used for carry-on luggage—towards Matt’s car. He lifts it into the back seat, closes the door, and looks at me as if noticing something for the first time. “You look pretty,” he says. “Not as pale as when I saw you on Sunday. Did you spend some time in the sun this week?”
“Yes. I managed to get quite a bit of tanning done, actually.”
“Cool. I hope you brought nicer shoes, though,” he adds as he stares pointedly at my slip-slops. “You need to look a little smarter for the party this afternoon.”
“Of course,” I say with a sigh as I open the passenger door. “They’re in my suitcase.”
***
Matt likes to talk a lot, which works out well for us, since I’d rather be listening than talking. He spends the first half hour of our drive to the Drakensberg telling me about the game of golf he played with his dad yesterday. I try to remain interested, but I’ve always found golf to be a particularly boring game—perhaps not too boring if I were on the golf course witnessing a game myself, but certainly boring enough when I’m being given a blow-by-blow second-hand account of every blade of grass.