I Won't Call This Hell

My legs were shaking. So were my arms, my chest; my whole body was trembling. I had been foolish to think I could do this. Foolish, naive, dumb. I wasn't strong enough for this. I wasn't.

I closed my eyes tight, my hands trailing down my legs to my knees, where I pushed them together in an attempt to stop the shaking. I bent forward, chest to legs, inhaling, exhaling.

I sit there, quiet. I sit there, breathing. I sit there, quiet, breathing, waiting until the woman's smooth voice slides through the speakers to my ears.

"Passengers, the doors have been closed and secured. You can now put your seat belts on." I sigh, try to relax, because I am one step closer to being done with this.

Only a few minutes later we do start moving, backing up, slowly but surely and I am not calm. I am not relaxed. I am nothing close to serene right now. I continue to hold my legs close, head at knees level, focusing on breathing through my nose.

I'm not calm, that's for sure, when the person to my left puts a hand on my back, making my heartrate escalate to what seems to be a million beats a second. I shoot up, but their hand doesn't leave my back. I turn, despite my anxiety, ready to punch the dirty man who had the nerve to feel on me in my moment of weakness, but I didn't find a sleezy douche bag or some young yuppie looking for a girl who, in this enclosed space, couldn't run away.

The hand on my back belonged to an older woman, who found my eyes and stared into them the moment I turned. Dark lashes framed her deep green eyes, dark eyebrows resting above them on her light, olive skin.

"Are you alright, figlia?" I looked to her pink mouth as she spoke. I shook my head, forgetting my manners and rudely letting my body fold itself again. Once again, the woman laid her hand on my back, gently rubbing with her hand.

"My name is Aniela," she said, bringing her mouth down near my ear. "What's yours?"

I take in a deep breath, pushing my body up and looking at her. "I'm Lynnette," I breathe.

She smiles, then, Aniela. Then, she surprises me, reaching for my hand and holding it in both of hers. "Okay, then, figlia, tell me, Lynnette, why are you on this plane when you are obviously terrified of it?"

**

"It's a gorgeous drawing," Aniela says, studying on the drawing in her lap. I had pulled it from my bag at least five minutes ago for her to see, right after I finished explaining why I was on this god forsaken plane.

I blush, before telling myself to push that thought away. I look to my lap."He's very good-looking."

"No," she snaps. I look up, brow creasing in the middle. "I mean, he is a handsome young man, yes, but that isn't what I meant. This picture, what you drew, this is gorgeous. Now, tell me, when did you start this?"

"Well, um... you remember my best friend, Sophie? Well, it kind of started after she gave me a reality check. She told me to 'Get over it or do something about it.' Then I started thinking about what I wanted, did I want to get over it? Did I want to take a risk, after I had been h-heartbroken? What did I want to do? I thought for a long time. I mean, I went a month, still in the same state I had been in before she had told me this, but now I was thinking, not moping.

"Nothing was coming to me. I wasn't busy. I didn't have school or work to look forward to. I just thought. All day. Every day. For a month. I took notes on my thoughts in one of my old, half filled sketchbooks. The second I rolled out of bed in the morning, I was thinking. I made lists in the notebook, everyday, but most of them were repetitive of each other. So, the lists turned into doodles and sketches. These, at least, were different.

"Until they weren't. It was, I don't know, mid-July when I started realizing that all of my doodles had something in common. A heart, a word, the beginning sketch of someone's jaw, what looked like a peacock feather. They didn't look alike, but they were. They all reminded me of him. That's when I flipped to a new, fresh page and started sketching. When I woke up in the morning I didn't turn to a new page and start over, I picked up where I left off until I had his whole face, drawn out in front of me, straight from my memory."

"That," Aniela started to say, before breaking off again. A few minutes later she took in a small breath, reaching for my hand again. "That's why this picture is so beautiful, Lynnette, because you drew it from your heart. You created it out of love."

**

I walked with Aniela off of the plane. We walked all the way to security together, before she stopped me. "Take care of yourself, figlia."

"I hope I'm doing the right thing," I say.

"You are," she says, holding my hands in hers. "You're taking action; that's something many people can't do. Not even me. I envy you."

"Don't," I mumble, pulling her close.

"Thank you," she says, smiling, before turning from me and walking away.

So, here I was, alone in the Denver Airport. I had never been in Denver before. I'd had the chance, but I'd skipped out, for my brother's wedding, but I'd skipped out because of my fear of planes. Only I was here now, chasing some stupid boy and looking after a woman who envied me.

Aniela had told me her own story on the plane. I held her hand as she spoke, like she had done for me.

"I was in love once, truly, deeply in young love. His name was Fedele. He looked like the other boys, like they all did. Dark skin, heavy curls, typical for the area he came from. Only he had the strangest eyes. One was a deep brown, and the other was half that and the color of olive oil. I always felt so strange under his gaze, so strong and beautiful and alive. But there is one thing that I will never forget about him, the thing that pulled us apart more than anything. He wasn’t going to America.

“The night before we were set to leave, I was going to tell him that I was with child. I went to his home, where he lived with his many brothers and mother. I could hear her yelling, his mother, but it wasn’t making sense, the things she was saying. ‘We can’t, Fedele, you can’t! We need you. This is not... what would your father say?’ and then my beloved Fedele spoke and his voice broke.

“He was crying. I’d never so much as seen him flinch, and here he was crying. ‘I don’t know,’ he shouted, ‘would he not want me to be like you were, happy and able? I know it is not my place, I know I shouldn’t, but I don’t want this anymore.’

“I never spoke to him. I haven’t seen him since. I cried when we came here. I felt so horrible, for leaving. What was the difference, raising my baby Rosalina here or back home? I still thought of Italy as home, as I still do. Home is where the heart is, right? My heart was with Fedele. Like it is now. Nothing has changed. Rosalina is thirty-two now. I never married another man, never so much as took a second glance at one. I raised my baby on my own, worked hard to do so. I haven't seen Fedele since I was seventeen. He's probably married off by now. Then again, I'll never know. Rosalina knows, of course. She sees him at least twice a year with her husband, but I don't ask her how he is. I made a mistake, so I must deal with it."

John might not be my Fedele. He might not be the one for me, but as I watch Aniela walk away to the meet-up area (to find her daughter), I know I'm doing the right thing. I'm not going to regret this.