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I stopped behind his seat and reached out a hand towards him; the left one, the one he’d slipped a diamond on to just nine months ago. The stone caught the light shafting through the enormous window beside him and radiated an arc of colours as my hand settled on his shoulder.
‘Finn,’ I said, my voice surprisingly steady.
Several things seemed to happen at once then. All of them in slow motion. He lifted his head and I’m not sure what surprised me most, the infant cradled against his chest, or the fact that the man with Finn’s hair had a completely different face.
‘They didn’t have any KitKats, babe, so I got us some—’ A young woman in fashionably ripped skinny jeans and an oversized T-shirt came to an abrupt stop as she saw a total stranger with her hand resting on her husband’s shoulder. It was still on his shoulder, I realised, long after I should have withdrawn it.
I did so now, as though I’d been electrocuted. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone else. I thought you were my husband.’ I had no idea why I’d elevated Finn to a position he’d not actually achieved and possibly didn’t even want.
The woman seemed much happier now that I’d removed my hand. ‘Nope. This one’s mine.’
The couple shared a look and I stepped back, babbling an apology. Those close enough to have observed my embarrassing mistake were looking at us over the top of their freebie newspapers and their phones. It was, admittedly, an interesting diversion during the mundane wait before take-off.
I continued to back away, my face so hot it was as if it was sunburnt. I stumbled over someone’s walking stick and almost fell flat on my backside, which would have just about completed my total humiliation.
I found myself a seat as far away from the couple as it was possible to get and sank down on to it, trying to make myself very, very small. I spent the next fifteen minutes staring at the moving walkway as it carried new passengers to the gate and then tipped them off at the end, like a factory conveyor belt. Finn was not among them.
The check-in officer who’d issued my boarding pass had relocated to staff the departure gate, which meant there was little point in asking again if anyone could check the computer for me. I doubted his stance on airport security would have changed in the last hour. I also had a strong suspicion that he’d pointed me out to his colleagues, because the back of my neck was prickling in that uncomfortable way it does when you know that someone is staring at you. I turned around and they both jumped guiltily while making a big show of looking the other way.
The sheer number of passengers at Gate 47 made it difficult to say for sure that Finn wasn’t somewhere within the crowd. Forty minutes before take-off, boarding eventually began. The crowd thinned slowly: first class and business made a sizeable dent in it, as did families with young children. I waited as, row by row, passengers were summoned to the plane. They called my row and I glanced down at the boarding pass in my hand before slipping it into my pocket. There were now only thirty passengers left queuing patiently to board.
My head jerked up at the sound of footsteps. Some late arrivals were pounding down the travelator, duty-free bags banging against their legs as they ran. Sadly, I looked around the almost empty waiting area and then back towards the main terminal.
I’d seen this scene – or versions of it – in more films than I could remember. At the last moment, with just seconds to spare, someone would come tearing through an airport to save the day, say goodbye, say I love you or beg someone not to leave. Hell, I’d even been in one of those scenes myself.
I closed my eyes and the airport disappeared, to be replaced by another one, four years in the past.
*
I wasn’t going to go. It was crazy. This was no big love story. One date – admittedly a contender for the best I’d ever had – did not make this a love affair. I still wasn’t even sure how much I liked Finn. I definitely hadn’t liked the first version of him that I’d met, but this new, improved one was an entirely different proposition.
But that didn’t make him boyfriend material, and I wasn’t looking for one of those anyway. I’d told myself I was done for the time being. I was taking a break, giving my heart a chance to recover from yet another bruisingly bad choice. So why was I now staring at the alarm clock, running calculations through my head? If I ran to the train station and then caught the Gatwick Express, I might – just might – be able to get to the airport in time to…To what?asked the sensible version of me.To do a big romcom farewell scene in the terminal, kissing passionately in the middle of the concourse before Finn went through airport security? And why? Because he’d looked at me with eyes the colour of melted dark chocolate and asked me to see him off? Who did that anyway, outside the pages of a Hollywood script? No one, right? No one except me, it seemed.
I’ll let fate decide, I told myself as I left my flat and hurried towards the station.If I am ‘meant’ to go to the airport, if I’m ‘meant’ to see where this thing could go, the trains will all be with me today. But if they’re delayed or cancelled, then it’s a sign that this was a stupid plan, and I should just go back home and do something far more sensible with my Saturday morning. How many people are dumb enough to allow the transport authorities to dictate their love life, I wondered? But, just this once, I was willing to give in to an impulse in a way I’d never done before.
The train was at the platform, its doors open as though in invitation. I jumped on and they immediately slid shut behind me. The connecting express train for the airport was similarly ready and waiting for me. Was it a sign or was this just my lucky day? I resolved to buy a lottery ticket later, just in case.
He will not be there. Of course, he won’t be.I repeated the words like a mantra as I rode the escalator up into the airport terminal. I glanced at my watch. I’d checked his flight details while on the train. It would surely already be boarding by now. Finn would have long since gone through security and be airside; he was probably already at the departure gate.
But he wasn’t. He was there, in the terminal, looking unbelievably fresh on the short amount of sleep I knew he’d had.
His smile split my resolve like a coconut. Almost as though I was watching someone else, I ran towards him in true movie fashion. He dropped the bag he was holding, and I had just long enough to thinkI hope there was nothing breakable in therebefore his arms were around me. He lifted me off the floor, something no man had ever done before, and spun me around. It was unclear whether my sudden head rush came from the carousel-like motion, or the nearness of him.
‘You came,’ he said, his lips tantalisingly close to mine.
‘I know,’ I said stupidly. ‘I have absolutely no idea why.’
His eyes were twinkling as they looked into mine. ‘I think I do.’
Somewhere in the back of my mind, sensible Gemma was beating her fists in frustration on an unbreakable window while yelling at me to stop this madness. I tuned her out.
‘I think maybe I do too.’
He kissed me then, and if anything it was even better than the ones of the previous night.
‘Come with me,’ he said, his voice low and husky.
Two beats, maybe three, made me actually consider his words, as though it was a sensible suggestion and not an act of total insanity. Reality kicked in, and it hurt, it really did.
