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I nod, an involuntary hand skating to my chest to put pressure on the stabbing pain.
I don’t know why I seriously thought getting here early meant Carly would too, but whatever part of me it was, was wrong.
Now, it seems, all I can do is wait.
“Come on, Ry,” my dad says then. “Let’s go inside for a little while.”
I nod.
I can only hope my emotions will take kindly to the change, and that time, the fickle fucker, will move fast.
Chicago, IL, November 6th, Friday
Carly
The sun is heading toward the horizon for nightfall, and the sky showcases hues of pinks and oranges and purples and blues. And I stare out the window as my second flight of the day goes wheels up, taking off from Chicago O’Hare and heading for sunny Florida. The plane jolts a little as we speed into the air, quickly accelerating and rising in altitude.
“You want anything?” Willow asks, sitting in the middle seat to the right of mine.
“Want anything? What do you mean?” I question, but she’s already too busy with reaching down to pull her purse out from underneath the seat in front of hers to actually hear my question.
Once her big-ass Louis Vuitton bag is in her lap, she elbows me in the ribs to reach inside it, and I grimace.
“Shit, Willow. Mind your bows.”
“Sorry,” she apologizes, but it’s half-assed at best. Her hands rummage through her bag for an insanely lengthy period of time, and I shift in my seat so my back rests against the window and my eyes face her. The change in position is not only good for conversation, but it’s also good for injury avoidance.
“What on earth are you doing?” I question, and she glances up from her mystery bag of tricks to glare at me.
“Organizing my snacks and trying to figure out what I want to eat first,” she retorts, and I lean forward to look inside her bag.
I shit you not, the damn thing has an actual shiny, plastic organization station filling the center of it. And everything has a specific and labeled place, even her fucking loot of snacks.
“You’re so type A, it’s not even funny,” I tell her on a laugh, and she rolls her eyes.
But the instant the words type A repeat inside my brain, a pang stabs at my chest.
I know someone who is very type A, someone who would probably get a kick out of Willow’s systematic arrangement of snacks and wallet and phone and keys. Someone who would probably have something similar if he carried around a purse.
Ryan.
I’ve been trying so hard not to think about him, but hell’s bells, it’s an impossible task.
Not to mention, I’m on a plane heading back to Sunny Creek for our parents’ freaking wedding, and I’m certain he’ll be there.
“You want some Doritos?” Willow asks, and I shake my head, my stomach now uneasy.
“No thanks.”
“What about a Rice Krispies treat?”
“I’m good, Wills.”
“Carly, don’t tell me I brought all these snacks for us during the flight and you’re not going to eat a single thing,” she mutters, more to herself than to me. “What about a Subway sandwich? I’ve got a six-incher with turkey, cheese, lettuce, and mayo.”
“How in the fuck did you get a Subway sandwich?”
She shrugs. “I grabbed it while I was waiting for your flight to land.”
In the name of solidarity and the fact that I’m also a big coward, I made Willow promise to fly with me to Tampa. I don’t know what I expected to happen if I arrived in Tampa by myself, but I just couldn’t do it alone. And thankfully, my successful, lawyer sister won the big case she had been working on and was able to get some time off to come to our mom’s very last-minute wedding.
And, with a lot of bitching from her and demanding from me, we settled on a travel arrangement that worked for both of us—I scheduled a flight from Vail to Tampa with a layover in Chicago, and that Chicago to Tampa flight is the one Willow made sure she booked a seat on.
“Here,” she says, handing off a freshly opened bag of Twizzlers. “Munch on these.”
I almost tell her no but figure it’s best just to go with it. Willow has always had a tendency to be a bit of a nervous flyer, so I have a feeling she’s trying to cope with it through overfeeding the two of us.
A bite of a stupid Twizzler in my mouth, I chew on it even though my roiling, grumbling stomach is basically screaming at me to stop.
The seat belt light dings off, signaling the plane has settled at our intended altitude, and Willow tears open a bag of Lay’s potato chips. The smell of salt and grease hits me straight in the face, and I fight the urge to smack the damn bag out of her hands.
