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“That’s it?” I ask.
“That’s it,” Jackson says, releasing my hand.
My heart is still thumping. “Were you ever scared to fly?”
“It’s probably better for me to answer this after we land.”
“We’re already up in the air. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen,” I say.
“You’re not going to parachute out of here?” Jackson asks.
“I have no idea how to get out of this seatbelt. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I still get really nervous, and I’m not sure when that will stop,” he admits. “It’s weird, because my dad is a pilot. Or maybe that’s the reason. I’m always a little on edge. This may sound selfish or horrible, but the only time I felt sort of ready for any tragedy was when I was with Theo.”
“Was he brave on planes?”
I’m asking Jackson to tell me something about you I don’t know while I’m flying. What a day, huh?
“Theo was funny. He’s the reason I buy magazines for flights instead of watching a movie or something. He would go through all the features, stuff like ‘Who Wore It Best?’ and would owe himself a dollar every time he was able to guess the right actor or actress for the celebrity crossword puzzles.”
I might cry. This isn’t a bad cry. This isn’t one of my I-never-got-to-do-this-with-you cries, I swear. It’s one of my I-might-have-a-laugh-attack-if-I-keep-thinking-of-this cries, which are good. I’m hit with a realization: the Theo you were with him isn’t the Theo you were with me, and maybe that’s okay. I’ve been so desperate to know who you were becoming, I never stopped to think about how everything that made you my favorite person could’ve changed. Maybe you didn’t outgrow me; you just became someone else. It doesn’t make me want to know the new you any less, but it makes me feel a little less worthless.
“That’s really funny,” I say, picturing you hovering over crossword puzzles the same way you did jigsaw puzzles, except with a few bucks fanned out before you and rewarding-slash-deducting from yourself every time you got something right. “So being with Theo is the only time you felt safe?”
“Not safe. Comforted. Knowing I’d be able to hold Theo’s hand or hug him if anything happened, comforted me. I knew I wouldn’t be leaving Theo behind if I died alone.”
It’s screwed up, but it makes sense. “Then Theo drowned in front of you.” The words just pop out of my mouth. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and it shocks him too. He tenses up and tucks his hands between his legs, squeezing them tight, like he’s locking them away. Even as we’re on our way to celebrate how you lived and to visit the beach where you died, we haven’t crossed this line yet.
You left us alone. Your death made us each a piece in this awkward puzzle that doesn’t completely come together, but it’s enough to make out the image: two boys in love with someone who is never coming back.
I shouldn’t have brought this up. It was a shitty thing to say to Jackson. He has to live with how he wasn’t able to save you. I was lucky enough to be spared that tragedy.
We’re pretty quiet for the next five hours. I even get a couple of brief naps in. When the plane slows and dips down, I jerk upright, tensing. Then the pilot announces we’ve begun our descent and to make sure our seatbelts are on. Jackson side-eyes me and laughs.
“Don’t forget: we’re supposed to be going down at this part,” Jackson says.
“If I hate this I’m walking home.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
I bravely look out the window as the plane slows and lowers—in little drops I wish were smoother, but who cares as long as we land. Once we’re lower than the clouds, I see a city washed in sunlight. I can even make out a beach in the distance. The plane safely touches down on the landing strip and bullets toward the airport with incredible speed, roaring. I’m thrown forward a little. And then it’s over. We’re gently rolling toward the gate.
“You flew!” Jackson says.
“I flew,” I breathe.
My life has changed. I can’t take back my first flight any more than I can take back losing my virginity to you, any more than I can take back the things I would love to undo. Possibilities are wheeling through my mind rapidly. If I can fly here for you, where will I go for me?
It’s almost fifty degrees in California this morning—I’ve gone back in time by three hours—so I roll down my window because I welcome anything above New York’s twenty degrees (with a wind chill that makes it feel like ten). I’m on the left in the cab, as I should be, taking in the sights—mainly other cars—as we exit the freeway and enter Santa Monica.
I have one missed call from my mom and a couple of texts from both of my parents, asking me how the homework is coming along and how I’m doing. I feel a wave of nauseating dread, even though I knew all along what would happen.
“Let me get this over with,” I tell Jackson.
“Good luck.”
I almost ask him to put on headphones so he doesn’t have to hear my mom’s deafening scream when she learns I’m three thousand miles away.
