1,000 Lies Told At 40,000 Feet High

“Chace?” I uttered. No. This was not possible; I had been flying to Sydney regularly for two years and not once had I ever encountered a stranger twice. How could this be happening?

“Avery? What are you doing here? I thought...?” Chace said, a look of confusion spreading across his gorgeous face.
“Amelia, are you okay honey? What’s going on?” Iris said from beside me. How was I supposed to explain this? My mind was blank. Who was I supposed to be?

“I think you have the wrong girl young man,” said Iris’ husband, whose name had slipped my mind. My brain seemed to at last restart itself and I could think clearly. I jumped up out of my seat after fumbling with my seat belt for a moment and grabbed hold of Chace’s hand.

“Could you excuse us for a moment?” I asked before pulling Chace down the aisle without waiting for an answer from Iris. I noticed an empty bathroom and quickly pulled Chace into the small space. However, I soon realised that an airplane toilet was not a great place to have a conversation, there wasn’t enough room for the two of us to stand up properly. Chace and I were standing too close, so close that we were almost touching. I noticed that I was still holding on to Chace’s hand and I hastily let go.

“Avery, can you please explain to me what on earth is going on?” Chace said. I bit my lip and looked away. God, he was going to hate me.
“First, I just want to say that I am really sorry. There isn’t even a word that I can think to express how sorry I am. But I honestly thought that I would never see you again. And, I don’t expect you to forgive me,” I said remorsefully.

“I’m sorry?” Chace asked. I could tell that he was becoming increasingly confused and I was feeling worse and worse. Tears had begun to form in my eyes and they were threatening to fall at any moment. I had never felt so guilty about lying to anybody; I couldn’t even look at Chace. I sat now on the closed toilet seat and tried to unjumble my thoughts.

“My name,” I began, looking at my feet instead of Chace, “my name isn’t Avery. It’s Piper. Piper Scarlett Evan. I’m not afraid of flying and I don’t have an older brother that just got married. In fact, I go to Sydney a lot, and when I meet people on an airplane, instead of being myself, I invent another person, another me, and pretend to be that person.”

Chace was silent for a minute and I didn’t move. I was too scared to break the silence by saying something.
“I don’t understand?”

“When I was fifteen, my parents divorced and my father moved to Sydney. I visit him every four to six weeks. At first it was okay, my father was always so excited to see me and we would spend the entire weekend together doing anything and everything. But then the company that he works at started to get bigger and bigger and it made more and more money. My father became increasingly important to the business and sometimes when I was supposed to be spending time with him he would have to go to work at the last minute. He changed a lot and he started to become more and more distant. I guess that he got used to the life of a rich bachelor and forgot about me.
My father doesn’t know who I am and he’s lost all interest in attempting to get to know who I am. I don’t spend any time with him and, I feel like I’m not good enough for him, for anyone really. So when I meet strangers I try to turn myself into someone else because I feel that if I pretend to be someone else, I might be good enough and someone actually will be interested in me. If my father cannot remember the time that we spend ‘together’, then the least that I can do is to maybe make the person who sat next to me on a plane think of me for a moment when they leave,” I finally finished explaining. By this point there were tears streaming down my face and I had brought my legs up so that my head was resting on my knees. I still hadn’t looked up at Chace. The small cubical was silent except for the sound of me crying.

“Please Chace, just say something. I never thought that I would ever hurt anybody, I never thought that anyone would find out. You’re the first person that I’ve told,” I begged.
“What do you want me to say Avery? Or Piper, or whatever your name is,” Chace finally said, “What you’ve done, it’s wrong, really wrong. You’ve lied to me and you’ve betrayed my trust. I honestly don’t know what to think. Everything I think I know about you is a lie.” I finally worked up the courage to look at Chace and I found that I couldn’t understand his expression. He looked torn and lost, but he also looked truthful. There was no doubt in my mind that he was being completely honest.

“I sort of get it. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve imagined being someone else. But...” Chace said falling silent.
“Do you hate me?” I asked nervously.
“I don’t know yet.” A loud ding sounded above us and broke the silence that had fallen.

“That’s the seatbelt light. We must be about to land. I should go back to my seat, you should too,” Chace said without looking at me and started to open the door of the toilet cubical.
“Wait, Chace, when are you flying back to Melbourne?” I asked quickly before he could leave. He seemed to hesitate and didn’t turn around to face me, but after a moment he answered me.
“I’ll be on the 7:50 pm flight on Sunday.”