Landon stared down at the empty plastic cup in his right hand, clenched tight between fingers drained of blood, now painted a stark white. “She’s gone.”
Dave whistled, and Landon fought the urge to rotate his fist, already in fighting position, into Dave’s objectively pug-like face. “That takes guts, man. Not to even think about the pill, after something like that? That takes guts.”
Something like that, Landon thought. True to the pilot’s word, the plane leveled—bumps fewer until they were far between. Landon used the still-pliable fingers on his left hand to click on the television screen above his tray table. The plane had drawn much of its long, curved arc across the Atlantic, with roughly a quarter of the journey to go. Landon pulled two fingers across the touchscreen until the plane was double its size, big enough that neither the northeastern coast of the US nor any of the British Isles were visible.
“Why’re you braving this trip, then?” Dave asked. “What’s so important you’d drag yourself through this hell?”
Finally, a question with an easy answer. “For her,” Landon said. “It’s all for her.”
Landon emerged from the tunnel connecting the plane to Edinburgh’s small airport and fought the urge to kiss the ground. Thanksgiving had only just passed in the States, but there wasenough Christmas decor wrapped around the steel beams that Landon could have been convinced the terminal had been designed to advertise the holiday. In lieu of placing his lips on the worn green-blue carpet, he stared up and took long, grounding breaths until the twinkle lights no longer blurred.
Dave had grown bored of him by the time dessert had been served, and it was only belatedly—carry-on in hand, feet firmly planted—that he wished Dave had pried just a touch further. He wished now, more than anything, that Dave had asked him what he meant by “for her.” Because then Landon would have had to be specific about why, despite his intense fear, he’d poured himself into a flying metal tube and what he was hoping to accomplish when he came out the other side. And that would have required he say, out loud, that he’d successfully accomplished every step of the plan he’d come up with. Step 1: Buy a plane ticket. Step 2: Fly to Scotland. He would have had to say, out loud, that all he had was an address for a girl who didn’t know his face from Adam. Dave might have said something profound, then—something that would have helped him mold loose fragments of ideas into concrete action. He and Dave could have spitballed his next steps over coffee and biscuits. Too late, now. It was unlikely he would ever see Dave and his bald head again.
Landon shifted his backpack a little higher and tried not to give in to his growing unease. He’d never been to Scotland, nor had he and Rose ever had much desire to travel there. They’d traversed the Italian Alps, scuba dived in the warm waters off Krabi, and wandered street markets in Taipei, and through it all had been steadfast in their shared opinion that the UK was dark, damp, and largely uninteresting. He wondered what it was about this new Rose that wanted to make it home.
Landon used his teeth to poke holes in his lips while winding through the long customs line full of people, each with their own reasons for making the journey. Many of them, he imagined, happy. Some, he figured, sad. Many here to do something unremarkable. And a handful, like him, here to do something life-changing.
When he got to the front of the line, the woman behind the counter held out her hand. “Passport.” Landon slipped off his backpack and pulled his newly renewed passport from the front pocket. He knew he looked like hell in the photo. The man at the CVS who’d taken it had even asked, very kindly, if he would like to try again, to which Landon had shaken his head no. He took a certain perverse pleasure in looking exactly as terrible as he felt.
“Purpose of your visit?” the woman asked.
Landon stiffened. “I’m visiting a friend.”
“How long will you be staying?”
Landon had absolutely no idea. But buying a one-way ticket to another country was something movies romanticized and customs agents would not tolerate, so he’d booked a return ticket for the maximum stay. “Leaving six months from today.”
He thought he saw the agent raise one groomed eyebrow. “And where will you be staying?”
He was pulled, momentarily, back into a painful memory—the day he scribbled her new address on the front of an airmail envelope just below her name. He hadn’t been sure if she’d dropped the surname they shared, so he erred on the side of caution and penned only her maiden name: Martin. Rose Martin. Turns out he’d been right. “39 Holyrood Road, flat 5B.”
“Anything to declare?”
So much it threatened to crush him. Nothing this woman would care about. “No.”
The agent pulled out a stamp thick with black ink and pressed down on his passport, his presence in the country rendered undeniable. “Enjoy your visit, Mr. Calloway.”
Landon tucked the passport back into his pack’s front pocket and swung it around until he’d shifted the straps on both shoulders. He was under no illusion he’d be staying at 39 Holyrood Road, flat 5B tonight, but he hadn’t cushioned that knowledge with a reservation. All he had was his backpack and small carry-on, so a shared room in a hostel would do just fine. He would stand in line for a taxi and ask the driver for their recommendations: somewhere in Edinburgh’s Old Town, somewhere he could imagine an invisible string tied around his wrist, snaking through the cobblestone streets to Rose’s door. It wouldn’t be hard, in a tourist city, to find somewhere to rest his head and gather his thoughts so long as he had money to throw at the problem.
He was so lost in the planning, so focused on not tripping over his old suitcase with the one wheel that didn’t quite swivel 360 degrees, that he almost missed the sign bearing his name in capital letters:LANDONCALLOWAY. Perhaps seeing he was about to blow by, the woman holding it hollered his name: “Landon Calloway!” Then added, “You hopeless, hopeless idiot.”
Landon worried his eyes might bug right out of his face. It was so jarring to see her halfway across the world, outside the context of his relationship with Rose, that Landon caught his foot in the wheel of his slightly defective suitcase, coming just short of losing his near-constant battle with gravity. “Poppy?” He already knew the answer but was too alarmed not to ask. He would recognize those fiery eyes anywhere. “What are you—” Landon couldn’tbelieve he thought for even a moment that she would let him finish the sentence.
“Conor called. Gave me your flight number.” Both her words and tone were clipped, like she was trying hard not to say what she was thinking. That was very unlike the Poppy he knew. Landon rubbed the stubble on his chin. He’d caved at the last second and shot Conor a text with his flight details; it felt better to know one person he loved knew where he was going, especially with his propensity to imagine the worst anytime he stepped foot on a plane. But how in the hell had Poppy gotten here so fast—fast enough to both intercept him and find the materials to make an airport pickup sign? “He’s worried you’re going to make a mess of things.”
“Bit late for that, isn’t it.” Landon felt a touch betrayed. “So, what, Conor called you and you somehow tricked your way into a visa, then bribed the pilot on your plane to fly at warp speed, just so you could be here to ship me off?” He was daring her to make it make sense.
At that, Poppy’s eyes lost a touch of their fire. “I’ll explain over a beer.”
“You could explain now and save us both the time and money I know you don’t want to spend on me.” If there was anyone in his life he could be direct with, it was Poppy.
She shrugged. “You came all this way. Let’s at least make a meal of it.”
Landon sighed, then looked down at his watch. “My body still thinks it’s eleven a.m.”
“Well, tell your body to catch up. And don’t go saying anything like that to a local if you can help it. They’ll all tell you that anytime is a good time to go to the pub.” Poppy was talking like a local herself in a way that raised the hairs on Landon’s arms. “And besides, the sun set at two.”
Dark, damp, and largely uninteresting, just like he and Rose had always said.
