Page 40 of Forbid It

The flight attendant sends me a customer service smile. “All three accounted for.”

“Three? This flight seats ten,” I protest, heart racing. “No, there’s a mistake. There’s more people coming.”

She ignores me, sliding the plane doors closed with a thump.

“I don’t think so, Cass,” Robbie tells me.

I glance at Pip with wide eyes.

“It’s okay,” she reassures me, leaning over the back of her seat. “We can fly commercial on the way back. We’ll even do Economy.” Admirably, she doesn’t even flinch as she says it.

“Please take your seat.” The attendant ushers me forward until I’m opposite a bemused Robbie.

The plane is already moving before I’ve finished buckling myself in with shaking hands.

My heart races as we start moving on the runway. Dad knows how much I hate the jet. I’ve told him over and over that I hate flying in it unnecessarily. Why would he trick me like this?

It’s only a few minutes before we’re in the air and a furious tear gathers in the corner of my eye. I use my nail to catch it before it drops and stare out the window as if I can see the trail of CO2 the engine is leaving in the atmosphere.

A small kick to my shoe has me looking up. “You good, trouble?”

I take a deep breath. “It’s fine.” I flash Robbie what I hope is a reassuring smile, but it falters before I can turn my head away enough for him to not notice.

“Right, I’m going to go take a nap in that bed,” Pip announces as soon as the captain tells us we can unbuckle. “Try to relax, darling.” She throws me a wink over her shoulder as she goes, and I return to my window.

“Is it the plane you have a problem with?” Robbie asks, settling further into his seat. “It’s a bit gauche for my tastes, but beggars must.”

I roll my eyes and rest my heavy head on the headrest. “Been on a lot of private jets, I bet?”

Robbie shrugs. “I’ve been around.”

He’s in jeans and a t-shirt, an outfit I don’t think I’ve ever seen on him before. I usually only see him now in his Rebels uniform or gym shorts, although I’ve yet to forget what he looked like in a suit at the bottom of my garden. Now, his light grey t-shirt stretches across his biceps and his jeans hug his thighs so snugly my mouth almost dries out. Maybe there is a perk to the flight if I get to sit opposite him.

He nudges me again with his foot. “Spill it.”

I let my eyes fall closed. “A few years back, I was on this huge tour. The biggest of my career at the time. I loved it obviously but it was so exhausting. I didn’t really have any control over any of the logistics or anything, I didn’t even pick my set list and every night I’d leave the venue and come straight here and fall asleep in that bed back there,” I gesture to the door Pip closed behind her. “I didn’t even think about what the backup dancers or the band or everyone else was doing each night, it was just me and my parents. I'd much rather have slept on the bus with my backup dancers, rather than behind a thin door while they bickered out here all night but I was so tired I couldn’t really think about anything other than the next day's show.

About halfway through the tour, I found an article about private jet emissions compared to commercial flights.” I open my eyes to squint at him. “Do you know how much CO2 I personally emitted that year flying around in this thing?” I knock on the arm of my chair.

Robbie shakes his head.

“A fuck ton. You’d probably need to plant over a thousand oak trees to heal the hole I blew in the ozone layer that year alone.” I still remember the hollow feeling in my gut when I did the math. It wasn’t a massive corporation funneling oil into the gulf, or a government decommissioning wind farms, but I was directly causing damage to the planet on a massive scale. Me. “After that, I wanted to get on the bus with the rest of the team. It’s not like I loved the jet so much I couldn’t not use it. It would have been so easy to travel on the tour bus. I begged my Dad to let me bunk with them, or at least fly commercial when they did, but he refused, said I was ‘the star’,” I air quote. “That I needed to be treated accordingly. When I got home, I swore I wouldn’t use the jet again, unless I absolutely had to. Dad doesn’t understand,” I add bitterly. “He doesn’t care.”

“You care,” Robbie says quietly. “That should be enough for him.”

I shrug pathetically, running my fingers through my hair and pulling it into a bun on the back of my neck to get some much needed air to my heated skin.

He’s quiet for so long, I think the conversation is over, but then he leans forward in his seat. “How much does a good tree go for these days?”

“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Ten thousand?”

“Ten thousand pounds? For a tree? Surely not.”

“I don’t know, I haven’t looked into it,” I reply with a laugh.

“I could see a bonsai going for that much, sure, but just a regular old oak? You’re having a laugh.”

For the first time since I stepped foot on this plane, I find myself smiling. “I don’t know the price of trees, Bert. Who do you think I am?”