But now—I sniff and swipe at my tears—that’s never going to happen.
Deceased.
I slam my laptop closed with a sharp click. I’m never going to forgive them for lying to me. Never.
CHAPTER6
Savannah
Imade a mistake.
My stomach is curdling. I can’t breathe. I don’t know where October disappeared to, but I want it back. I hate flying at the best of times, then add in the all-consuming dread at seeing my parents for the first time in a couple months, and I’m a walking ball of anxiety.
I need sedation, but I was all out of anxiety meds. My PCP wouldn’t renew my prescription over the phone, and I didn’t have time to go see her. I should have made time. I should have found a way.
Right now, standing in the surprisingly short line for security at Cedar Rapids airport, I have regrets. Many of them, in fact. I don’t want to see my parents. I don’t want to look at their guilty faces and listen to their guilty voices while the fire of rage still burns bright in my chest.
I don’t want to. But here I am.
My palms are slick with sweat, and a bowling ball is sitting in my gut.
I should have driven.
Flying is never the right choice for me, but it’s so much quicker, not to mention, I got a great deal on the ticket. And I thought I’d have my trusty happy pills. I know, I know, it’s poor planning, but I’m freaking out too much to be angry at myself.
If it wasn’t Thanksgiving tomorrow, I wouldn’t even be here. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find it in me to punish my little sister for our parents lying to me for years. While I’m still pissed at them, I miss her. I miss them all, even if I am still seething at my folks.
We always love making Mom’s life miserable when she’s in the kitchen trying to prep Thanksgiving dinner, and we’re determined to sample things ahead of time.
I sigh and push my carry-on suitcase forward on the belt toward the scanner. It’s butt-crack-of-dawn o’clock but the airport is pretty quiet despite the holiday. Maybe no one else really wanted to go home, either.
I walk through the security arch and pick up my bag, thanking the TSA agent and flashing him a smile. I’ve always wondered what the most interesting or hilarious thing they’ve ever pulled out of someone’s bag is, but I’ve never had the guts to ask them.
They thought my bath salts were drugs once. Another time I had a sniffer-trained Beagle bark at my backpack, which scared the shit out of me. Obviously. I mean, IknewI didn’t have anything illegal in the bag, but for a really long fucking moment I wondered if a Mexican cartel boss had somehow planted cocaine on my person.
What had the Beagle taken offense at?
A fucking apple, abandoned and long forgotten about, languishing at the bottom of my bag. My heart had threatened to explode as I waited to see what they’d found.
A motherfucking apple.
I’ve never carried fruit on a flight again.
And after they pulled out a giant pink vibrator from the girl next to me in the security line when I flew home for Christmas last year, I stopped carrying my Buzz-tastic battery operated boyfriend with me too.
No fruit, no vibrators.
I would literally die if that happened to me. I can walk into Bitches Brew and order myself a dick waffle, but the idea of someone reaching into my case and pulling out my portable, personal peen in a crowded airport? The bowling ball in my stomach shifts, and I swallow against the wave of nausea. Fuck no.
It’s a small airport, so it doesn’t take long to walk to my gate. My feet stutter to a stop when a familiar head of blond hair appears in my line of sight.
I groan. Out loud, because of course Justin Ass is going home to Minnesota too. There are two direct flights from Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis every day—he couldn’t have taken the one at 6:30pm instead of the 7:00am?
Of course he couldn’t, that would have just made my life too simple. And I guess he’d have missed out on an entire day with his family too. Sighing, I admit that would be a lot to ask of someone who doesn’t seem to know or care that I’m so mad at him for being at the same college as me.
I’ve managed to avoid him since that fateful day in the coffee shop, but this, ha! You couldn’t write this.
I check behind me, half expecting to find a disheveled-looking author scribbling notes about my life into a spiral bound notebook. If it was happening to anyone but me it’d be hilarious.
