Airport

To her, life seemed surreal. She couldn’t seem to differentiate between what had happened in her life and what merely happened in her mind. This was a true problem. The jumbled mess of her mind seemed to engulf her as a being. Though, on her exterior, she kept a passive smile upon her face. She liked it this way. The people around her knew nothing of what was going on inside. She was glad; fore she didn’t even know how to describe it. Even to her, the internals buried within seemed like a long line of yard, hopelessly tangled about. If anyone was to come along and figure out how to undo this web of knots, she would be forced to recognize this as a miracle. She had given love a chance before; many more than she was keen to admit to. She wondered often, her head rested upon her pillow in the dark of night, why the events in her life had happened. She learnt over the years to hide herself from her own thoughts; unwilling to face the truth.

Some may say she was foolish; though she disagreed. The methods of shutting out her undesired feelings and emotions seemed rather ingenious to her. The people with their minds endlessly running over and over their mistakes, their flaws, and their dark moments in life seemed foolish. Bottle it up she would say. And that’s exactly what she did. Sealed tight as if entombed within, her darkest secrets were locked forever.

At this moment in time, she sat upon a seat, nose in a book. This seemed to be her escape, her escape from reality. It occupied her mind, sending her rushing into these make believe worlds of others. She enjoyed throwing herself into these characters, stepping into their shoes, if you will. And there lie the answer, she became someone else. Someone free of the burden of the endless tangled yarn within; free of sorrow. The snow outside had swirled like a tornado, bits of every size, building and building up. This angered her; her schedule was quite hectic and it discouraged her immensely when she was thrown off course. The reasoning behind this infuriation was due to her past, the thing locked inside her tiny frame. She envisioned it as her being slung from her path, thus her desire never to waver.

Now, as she took one hopeful glance up from her book, the first time in hours now, and a smug smile etched across her face. The scene on the other side of the glass was what she desired; no snow falling. The announcement that boomed across the lobby made this smug smile spread even further.

Some would call her a wreck. A poor soul endlessly wounded from a troubled past; a hopeless love. She somewhat agreed with this statement, though she would never admit that. Never love again she had vowed, it's more tribulation than it's worth. And she hadn’t. Not a glance, not a flutter of her seemingly stone-cold heart. It pained her to think of herself in this light; vaguely reminding her of a story she had once read. It had been about a young prince, a lovely man with the world at his feet. Maidens all across the land had longed for his hand but alas, he had seen the burdens of love and how it had consumed the lives of the men around him. He watched great, powerful men throw away their chance of glory for a maiden unworthy, as he thought, of them. Unwilling to succumb to such a thing, he tore his own heart out of his chest, locking it in a small wooden box he kept. He thought of his untouched heart as his greatest treasure, even in correlation to all the gold he had acquired, which he credited to his lack of a maiden thwarting his endeavors. And there it remained, still beating, but shriveled.

If you asked her why she felt this way, she would stare at you bleakly. Her co-workers, friends and family alike could not understand why such a lovely, strong willed girl, and ostensibly to them, full of life, wouldn’t even consider finding her soul mate. She found it silly to think of searching for one’s true love as an adventure. A man with the power to untangle this hodgepodge would be a miracle.

She arranged her things about her as she took her seat on the London-bound plane. Glancing at her watch, the irritation sat in again. Though on her way at last but still very much off course. The book was planted before her face once more; she paid no mind to the person who took their seat beside her. She never did, she never spoke to any of her companions on her travels. She could hear them arranging their belongings as well, attempting to get comfortable for the long flight ahead.

“Hello, I’m James,” came a man’s voice.
Internally, she huffed as she looked up from her book to glance at the occupant of the window seat.
At once, as her eyes fell upon the dark haired man, she felt the knots of her tangled mess within alleviate.