Hero

Today was the day.

That grand, special, almost heavenly like day was here. The birds were chirping, the sun was smiling, and the clouds were dancing in the brightly lit diamond skies.

Cynthia Laurant Hennin was leaving for a "trip" to Oakland, California. She and Adrienne had weeks prior planned out the entire length of the trip. Arranging appointments for spa's, restaurants, and hell, even an art exhibition so the two gals could catch up, drink, and make complete fools of themselves.

"You have the map I got you?" he asked
"Yes, Jordan"
"And you're sure you have your passport?"

"Yeeeessss," Cynthia groaned, annoyed at his parental like behavior. "I'm not fucking twelve years old. Now lets go before I miss my flight,"

Jordan grinned, taking her luggage from her hands and lightly dropped them to floor with a soft thud.
"Sorry," he whispered sweetly into the shell of her ear, arms wrapping around her waist, "I just can't help myself with you"

She forced herself to giggle and rub her eager hands up and down his clothed back. "Tell you what” she purred into his ear as well, gently pushing his back against the counter top in the kitchen. “When I get back, we'll make up for the days I'm not here," she replied in a dark, inappropriate, yet untruthful tone. In reality she wasn’t even coming back, this was it.

Months prior, the vixen had purchased not one, but two flight tickets. One... a round trip from New York to California. This ticket, she used to deceive her abusive fiancée.

The other... a one way ticket from New York to California, which stayed surreptitiously hidden in her underwear drawer, well, until now anyways; where it was jammed deep inside the messy realms of one of her suit cases.

The two stood in the kitchen for a little while longer, kissing more than they really should have.
“Jordan…” Cynthia grinned against his lips, “We have to go,”

With a deep sigh and saddened eyes, Jordan Vycer released his soft grip on his future wife and stepped passed her to take both her luggage and his car keys.
“This is going to be a long ass three weeks,” he grumbled.

The car ride to the airport had been normal, nothing of suspicion. The radio had been switched on, and the couple had chatted about this and that.
But the entire mood had changed when Cynthia’s heels clicked against the clean airport floors. She was trying to find the correct terminal, with Jordan breathlessly following behind with her heavy bags in stow.

“We found it baby,” she smiled from up front, viewing the large sign that stood above their heads.
Terminal 5B

Her fiancée finally caught up with her, and huffed as he found airport personnel to place her large bags onto the revolving luggage conveyor belt.

“I guess this is it,” she frowned, eyeing in guilt at her soon to be ex fiancee.
"Yep, and Cynth.." he slowly cooed. Jordan took a step forward and took her bruised hand into his.

"I know I'm not the perfect guy, you know, but uh.." he sighed and his eyes dropped down to the floor, too ashamed of himself to look into his girlfriends' glossy eyes.
"But I mean well, I love you Cynthia, even if I have weird and sometimes horrible ways of showing it."

"Jor--" she tried interrupting, but he shook his head.
"No. Just hear me out for a second," he spoke softly, hand still holding hers.

"I know there's a lot in California for you, a lot of guys, some even better than me. But, I just wanna let you know I care for you, an- and that I'm really sorry for being more than a jerk sometimes."

For a split second, Cynthia Hennin felt bad. Guilty even.

Deep inside, she knew he loved her, that he cared for her, and that maybe he was truly sorry for his crimes. And somehow, somewhere deep behind the dark bruises, the remnants of tears, the piercing screams of fright and pain, and the confusing emotions, she did love him. She did care for him. And hopefully in time, she would forgive him.

But not now.

She gazed into his sad eyes, surely to stow this scene, this picture, in her mind for forever. The way Jordan's hair was slightly mussed

thanks to the departure sex last night. The way his shirt melted against his chest, how amazing he smelled, how charming he could be.

And he stared at her. Stared at her magnificent beauty, her black varnished fingernails, the peachy par fume scent wafting from her neck into his nostrils. How her wavy gothic black tresses fell water like down her neck and stopped at her shoulders.

"I love you, I gotta go," she nearly whispered embracing the man into a hard hug. The intercom had yet to even call her flight, but this was a bit too much for her to handle.

"Love you too," he replied sincerely, pecking her cheek as they both let go of one another. And with a shy smile, his girlfriend, fiancée, and better half, ...

Had fled away.

God, she had forgotten how much she had loathed flying.

That ever present feeling of a fiery plane crash continuously gnawed at her bones. That ever present premonition that her plane would shatter into millions of pieces and spill into the dark blue abyss of ocean below took hold of her mind.

And whenever these feelings took over, her entire body shook with a paranoid fear, and her eyes would jam shut as she prayed to the Lord above.

“Maa’m would you like something a bit a stronger, you seem a bit…” the perky flight attendant exclaimed, “flustered.”

Cynthia, with tiny speckles of sweat dotting her forehead, nodded in slight relief. “Please, the strongest thing you have,” she groaned after a small amount of turbulence juggled the plane. “Oh, and make sure there’s plenty of whiskey in it,” she added with a strained smile.

“I’m on it miss,” she answered almost too brightly, whisking away to the back of the plane to retrieve the antidote.

The now free vixen turned her head and grinned at the image beside her. An old man, presumably in his sixties, breezing through the in flight magazine. His freckled face gleamed as his eyes trailed over the destinations that JetBlue had to offer.

He turned his head, feeling her eyes on him and cocked his eyebrow in curiosity.
“Good morning there” he smiled
“Hi,” Cynthia chattered back, “you enjoying the flight?”
“Better than you are. I almost thought you were gonna have a heart attack beside me. And that’s my job, not yours.” He chuckled to the point of meek coughing.
“I don’t like flying at all. Which is why this is a one way trip,” she explained

And as the too chatted about their various reasons for going to Oakland, whether it be truth or not, the flight attendant had finally came back with the alcoholic drink. The buzz and slightly tipsy sensation she felt afterward was quite relaxing. She had barely noticed when the plane had hit anymore turbulence as it rumbled about somewhere over Illinois. And when her phone buzzed and vibrated, she had barely registered that.

“I think your phone is ringing dear,” her newfound friend grinned, seeing as she was barely conscious to speak.
“Thanks Charles,” she replied faintly, eyes drifting, begging for slumber.

The number that had appeared was foreign, or at least unknown. Either someone had changed their number or someone was mistaken. Or it could be…Jordan. Maybe he had found evidence of her overextended leave, maybe this was a trap.

“Hello?” she greeted hesitantly.
“Cynthia?” an old, but somehow familiar voice replied.

“Yes…Who is this?”
“Guess who,” he pegged.
“Excuse me?”

“Guess who your speaking too,” the man snickered.
“The only reason I have yet to hang up this phone is because you sound oddly familiar, but I will if you don’t tell me who this is,” she muttered with venomous attitude.

“Ouch,” the stranger growled. “You haven’t changed a bit Cynth, or shall I say… Trouble.”

She immediately began to giggle, knowing all too well who this ‘stranger’ was on the other line. Only one man referred to her as trouble, because according to him, she had always found her way into some sort of trouble.

“Tre! You moron,” she nearly squealed in popping giggles.
“What’s up? Adrienne told me you’re visiting today,”
“Yeah, oh my gosh. I haven’t seen any of you guys in years.”

“I know,” he responded. “Are you drunk or somethin’?”
“No,” she laughed. “I’m not a fan of air travel so the flight attendant gave me a drink, but I’ve had at least three so far,”

Tre chuckled on the other end, missing Cynthia all over again. They had lost contact for what? Almost four years now.

“What time are you getting here?” he asked, preoccupying himself with biting off a hang nail.
“I forgot, but I’ll call when I’m close I guess,” she smiled, and then yawned.
“You tired?”
“A little, I guess the drinks made me a bit sleepy,”

“Take a nap so we can hangout when you get here, I gotta go” he mumbled
“Alright, see you later Tre,”
“Peace,”

Eyes fading, and body tired, she turned off the phone and stuffed the device into her back pocket. She turned to say goodnight to her old friend Charles, but he had fallen asleep as well, the magazine still glued to his lap. She gently folded it and stuffed it back into place in the mesh pocket of the seat in front of him, before finally falling asleep.

It was approaching, the headache. Her head felt like an obscure mixture of pain and fuzz. Everything was quite a blur as she walked about Oakland International Airport. It was cold inside the airport and she shivered as she finally caught site of the luggage conveyor belt.

Her green heels clicked about the floor as she took out her phone to dial Adrienne and tell her of her arrival.
“Are you almost here Adie?”
“Yeah, what airline did you take?”

“JetBlue, I think –“
“O.k, I’ll be there in like 10 minutes. Be outside,”
“You’re gonna have to come help me, I brought a lot of things.” Cynthia trailed suspiciously, capturing her best friend’s attention.

“Why? You’re only spending three weeks here.”

She only coughed as a response. “I’ll try and get someone to help me carry them out then,”

“Noo,” Adrienne exclaimed in a fluster. “I’ll help you, it’s o.k. Just wait inside then,”
“Alright, bye Adie,” she replied, not wishing to argue in her slight state of confusion.
“See you soon,”

Charles was waiting for her at the luggage retrieval station, one of his bags already at his side. And in a matter of seconds his second and final bag had swirled it’s way around, and she gladly heaved it up for the old man.

“Thank’s,” he smiled. “Would you like to meet my daughter?”
“Sure,” Cynthia mumbled.
The pair only walked several meters before a brunette beauty came into sight.
“Valerie, sweety, this is Cynthia. Cynthia, my daughter Valerie.” The old freckled gentlemen introduced us.

“Hi,” she greeted, back arched to already take her father’s luggage. But then she lowered her voice to a nearly inaudible tone.

“I’m his nurse. He’s a bit senile.”

With a shocked expression Cynthia took in this surprising information.
“He’ll probably start calling you his daughter soon.” She grinned.

The trio waved their goodbyes and Cynthia quested back to the baggage retrieval. She had just bent over to pick up her royal blue suitcase when a hand covered eyes, and another hand covered her mouth.

She immediately thought it was Jordan and was milliseconds away from screaming when Tre turned her body around to face his.

It was a happy, almost euphoric moment. No, it was better than euphoric, it was nearly nirvana. Her headache, the confusion, the shock…had all melted away.

It was almost too easy to see that Tre Cool, Frank Wright, whatever had the identical feeling. And so, his arms spread and he lifted his trouble up into the air and spun her about.

“Tre!” Cynthia squealed in bursting laughter, latching her arms around his neck, which she noticed was sporting a new tattoo. But then her laughter, her happiness, morphed into vicarious tears.

He immediately dropped her to her feet.
“Cynth?” he stated sympathetically, completely stunned at her odd behavior.
“Cyth? What happened? Why are you cryi— OUCH!” he finished his statement in a painful yelp.

“What did you do to her?!” Adrienne exclaimed, her hand already going back to smack Tre upside his head once again.
“Eyy, I didn’t do anything,” he muttered, letting go of his grip on a crying Cynthia to rub his head. “She just started bawling.”

She continued to sob, hands covering her dripping wet face. The tears were of nothing but pure joy. No more pain, well, physical at least. No more boyfriend troubles, no more secrets…She could breathe…And more importantly she was free.