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But he just spoke several sentences in a row to me. I wasn’t expecting him to suddenly word-vomit and share his actual dream, and the sound of his voice has my heart moving just a bit faster, causing my tongue to trip over itself again.
When the silence stretches for a beat too long, I finally manage to spit something out.
“But you’re flying today,” I say. “Does that mean you’ve overcome your fear? Maybe you could go back for aeronautics now?”
He scrunches up his nose a little bit and shakes his head, accepting his drink and a napkin from the flight attendant.
“I’m just as afraid of flying today as I was when I was a kid. I understand lift and propulsion and engines and all the stuff you’re supposed to understand when it comes to how an airplane flies.” He shakes his head again. “It still doesn’t sit well with me.”
I laugh. “Oh thank god.” And then I keep laughing.
He gives me a questioning look.
“I’m just thankful that other people are afraid too, that I’m not some sort of freak who is completely irrational. It’s what everyone I know made me feel like before I left for this trip, and let me tell you—implying someone is stupid for being afraid doesn’t ever take away their fear.”
I didn’t appreciate the people who tried to make me feel like I was an idiot for being afraid. Fear is fear, and shaming someone does nothing but make you an asshole.
“You’re definitely not a freak, and you’re not alone in being afraid,” Boyd says. “Most people are afraid of flying to some degree. It’s all about the unknown. That’s what most fear is. My mom has always said fear is just rooted in a lack of understanding.”
I play his words over again in my mind, letting them percolate. The idea has merit, but I don’t think that’s what drives my fear.
He must see my disagreement on my face. “You don’t agree?”
I shake my head.
“I mean, I think what your mom said is true to some degree, but I don’t think fear is caused by a lack of understanding. We feel fear because of love.”
The face he makes when I say it has me laughing.
“That is…one of the strangest things I’ve ever heard,” he says, lifting the tumbler of whiskey to his mouth to take a sip.
“Why? Is it so implausible to believe we are afraid because we have something to lose?”
He looks like he’s about to refute my opinion but pauses, and I can tell by his expression that he’s mulling it over.
“Sure, it sounds ridiculous when I use a word like love, but look at you—you just told me you understand how planes work yet you’re still afraid. If you’re afraid to fly, it’s probably less about not understanding how flying works and more about not wanting to die, right?”
He’s silent, so I barrel on.
“And why don’t you want to die? Because you love your life, or your kids or your spouse, or your job or your church or whatever else that matters. That fear builds because you imagine what life would be like without you for your family, or the things you would miss out on with the ones you love.”
He’s quiet for a moment. I’ve never seen someone so clearly working a thought over in his mind, his brows pressed together until they’re almost one long caterpillar.
I assume he’s gearing up to disagree with me, but what he says is a surprise.
“Let’s say I agree with you—how would you explain that a lot of people are not afraid of flying?” Then he smirks. “A lack of love?” he tacks on, sarcasm in his voice.
I shake my head with a smile. “It’s not a lack of love. It’s about the existence of logic. Think about it this way: Some people believe there isn’t a reason to be afraid because of data or science or whatever other argument that exists about safety. Other people ignore legitimate reasons to be afraid and choose not to be because they’ve accepted that death is inevitable and sometimes weird things happen.”
He nods, his lips pursed, and I think I’ve won the argument—although I don’t think we were in an actual argument as much as we were just debating something. My mom says there isn’t a difference, but there totally is.
“So which one are you?” he asks, leaning closer.
“What do you mean?”
He grins. “Are you afraid because of love? Or are you afraid because you lack logic?”
I burst into laughter, enjoying the look of surprise on his face, his eyes wide and his own grin growing.
