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But here? At the airport? While we’re pressed for time and about to leave… seems highly unromantic…
Still, now I’m nervous. Archie is doing his best to be inconspicuous. He would’ve probably left us alone already, if his abrupt departure wouldn’t make this even more awkward. And Winter… she’s still looking at me with those impossibly big blue eyes.
What do I do now?
I let out a nervous laugh. “So, I just figured I don’t even have your phone number…”
“My phone number?” Winter spits out.
I know that pout. It promises nothing good.
“Yeah, you know, to keep in touch.”
Her eyes narrow, and she looks more like the Winter of the first days we met. The woman giving me grief about almost everything and not the warm, loving creature of the past week.
Boarding pass and passport in one hand, she takes a step toward me. “You want to keep in touch?” The question comes out in a hiss.
“Yeah?”
What am I doing wrong here?
“I’ll tell you what,” she snaps. “Why don’t you friend me on fucking Facebook, then!”
And with that, she spins on her heel, walks toward the security gate checkpoint and, showing her boarding pass to the officer at the head of the line, marches away on the other side.
I’m already running after her. “Winter, wait!” I call.
When I reach the officer, I hand him my ticket. But after one quick look at the papers, the attendant shakes his head at me. “This is fast track only.” He points at the sign above the queuing lane entrance.
“Well, I don’t have a fast-track pass,” I say in a panic. “But I need to reach that woman.”
“Sorry,” the man says. “This line is only for passengers with a fast-track ticket.”
“Winter!” I call again. I can still see her on the other side as she removes her jacket and places her bag in a plastic box to feed it through the baggage scanner. “Winter, wait! Winter!”
She doesn’t hear me—or, pretends not to. And then she’s past the metal detector and walking away. Away from me. Away from us.
I stare to my left at the regular security line, and my shoulders sag in defeat. The queue is too long. I’ll never catch up with her before she boards her flight.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the officer says. “If you don’t have a fast-track pass, I need you to move aside.”
A heavy arm drops on my shoulders and steers me away. Archie gives me a pat on the chest with his other hand. “Attaboy; that went well… eh?”
* * *
Winter
Did I overreact?
I spend the journey home asking myself that question over and over again.
Unfortunately, I have a disproportionate amount of time to obsess. The itinerary back to California is crap. Some volcano in the Philippines decided to throw a little cinder and sparks party over the weekend, making the shortest, east-bound route to LAX closed off to all flights. So I’m rerouted to London Heathrow first, then New York JFK, and finally LAX.
A nightmare of a trip for every traveler, but for one journeying with a broken heart, like yours truly, it’s unbearable.
So, did I overreact?
I’m not sure what exactly Logan said that set me off like that. I know I can be impulsive. But where I spent our time in Bangkok trying to figure out how we could make our relationship work—Should I move to Berkeley? Could he transfer to UCLA? Should we do long-distance for a while?—Logan, apparently, hadn’t given it a second thought.
