City of Love

I'd past through all of the security check points like it was nothing. I had my luggage sent to the plane, and the only thing left was to board and pray to God I didn't have a screaming baby or a creepy 45 year-old sitting next to me. Finally...37 D. So far, no one was sitting there. Maybe I didn't have a airplane buddy. Things were looking up. I sat down and realized how rude I was to the guy in the waiting area. He seemed sincere and apologetic when she realized he had woken me up. I was so rude to him. All of my emotions from what had been happening the past couple weeks were just hitting me. I closed my eyes and ever-so-slightly dozed off before the plane had even taken off. I sense someone near me. I open my eyes only to see him standing over me saying,

"Still tired?"

You have to be fricken kidding me.

"It's been a stressful couple of days. Please just go find your seat and leave me alone. Oh, and sorry about earlier...and now...like I said, I've been super stressed." I tell him, trying to calm myself down.

"Do you realize that you're just giving me more things to apologize for?" he asked, giving me a sorry little kid look on his face.

I felt bad for him...until he started smirking. Then he just plopped down on the seat next to me. I was stunned. Does he realize how hard he's making this for me? I know I have no reason to be so upset with him, but he won't leave me alone. That's why I left my boyfriend. I needed to be alone.

As soon as I saw the first flight attendant, I quickly asked if there were any empty seats available. She, with her fake, heavenly white smile that was plastered on her face, told me no with a little too much sass. I sat down and just looked out the window. Part of me felt like a bitch to be so rude to this guy I've talked to only twice and part of me just wanted to figure out how to get him to leave me alone so I can finally process. This flight is about three hours long, and I'm going to have to deal. I'm trying to think of the least rude way to ask to be let out so I can find my headphones in my bag, when he says,

"My name's John, by the way."

"What?" I couldn't comprehend what he said because he was smiling like he had just gotten done laughing at the funniest thing ever. He had the most perfect smile. His teeth were pretty damn close to perfect, and his lips parted from the tops of his teeth almost perfectly. This was the only adjective I could think of that could describe it. It was mesmerizing. I only wish I--

"John."

"Charlotte."

"Well, howdy, Charlotte."

He smirked and this time did I realize how cute it was. It just hit me that I hadn't seen myself in a mirror for several hours, plus I took a nap, and I was sitting next to Mr. Adorable for three hours. I smiled and stood up, indicating I wanted to be let out. He moved his legs so I could walk past him, and I reached up to get my purse out of the storage cabinet above our seats. I knew he was watching me which is why I didn't look down at him. After fiddling with the handle with way too much time, I finally opened it, grabbed my purse, and ran to the bathroom.

Luckily, there was no one in there. I hurried in and locked the door. The lighting was unbelievably bad, but it didn't take a makeup guru on YouTube to see how bad I looked. My hair was in a messy pony tail, which didn't look half bad. I quickly cleaned up excess eyeliner under my eyes with a paper towel, and reapplied my eyeliner and mascara.

I returned to see him playing a game on his phone. I put my bag away and crawled over him back to my seat. I turned to look at him and apologized again. This time, I gave him a small smile. I really did feel bad for how I've treated this total stranger. I probably would've awkwardly rambled on if the pilot hadn't told us to buckle up for take-off. Then, the flight attendants walked up and down the isles telling us to turn off electronics. John turned his phone off, as did I.

"So where are you headed? You seemed ready to leave New York." He asked. I didn't see the harm in chatting with him. My stress levels seemed to be going down now that I was on the plane and will be out of New York within minutes.

"Kansas.. I'm ready to go home." I said shyly. "What about you?"

"Same. I was traveling with my friends and we had issues with my ticket so I had to wait it out. I don't know if they thought I was a terrorist or what, but airline folks are assholes." He laughed a little. "I'm actually really nervous."

"Why?" I didn't understand. He didn't mean he was nervous around me, did he? He had no reason to be.

"I hate airplanes." he chuckled, but I could tell he was dead serious.

His timing was perfect because right then we started moving. He had both hands gripping for dear life on his arm rests with his head back in the head rest and his eyes shut. I wondered if he was praying to God not to die. I couldn't help but chuckle with that thought. He opened his eyes and smiled at me.

"You better not be laughing at me." he said as he closed his eyes again.

"Nope, wouldn't dream of it." I smiled and turned to look out the window. I could see why everyone wants to come to New York. Not those who come in hopes to get famous, but those sane people who come to places for realistic reasons. New York, the state, was beautiful. The higher we got the easier it was to see the Appalachian mountains in the distance. I hadn't thought about what I'm going to do after I got home. I might get back into photography...that's what Mom will want. She said all of my pictures from high school are exactly where I left them in my room. I had won some local competitions, and felt like I was on Cloud 9. I hung them all over the house and my room. I also hadn't thought about what I was going to tell my dad. He didn't know I was coming home. I never told him about all of the problems we were having in New York. My parents got divorced back when I was in middle school and he remarried. He really loved my boyfriend. He loved the fact he was handsome and a star athlete. Dad always wanted me with someone like him in high school. I always thought it was creepy, but I guess I fell for it anyway.

By this point we were cruising and allowed to turn electronics back on. John had opened his eyes and was on his phone again. I reached in the little drawstring I had on my lap and pulled out my laptop. I pulled down the little table attached to the back of the chair of the passenger in front of me, and decided to get some photo editing done. Off and on over the years, I had taken pictures. Last night I uploaded all of my pictures from my camera to my laptop right before I packed it. I started looking through them and immediately deleted any that had "him" in them. I didn't even notice that John was watching me. Next thing I know, he reaches over and turns my laptop so he can see better.

"There's no fuckin' way you took these." he comments.

"Yeah, it's a hobby." I say.

"These are amazing. Why haven't you gone professional?"

"I didn't really have time.."

John must have understood it was a touchy subject because he dropped it pretty quickly. For the rest of the flight we talked, laughed, and ate something new every time the flight attendant walked by. We talked about when we were kids, our favorite things, movies, music, art, and even about past relationships. He really listened, which was the first thing I noticed. He was funny, too. At times, I forgot we were on an airplane.

At one point, he was going to try to nap. He put his headphones in and tried to sleep. He looked like a model. I couldn't help but snap a few shots. He woke up while I was editing them on my laptop.

"I'm not even mad that you took 'being creepy' to a whole new level. Those are amazing."

I laughed and apologized. He shrugged it off and went through some of the other pictures I had on my laptop. Next thing I knew, the flight attendant asked everyone to turn off electronics because we would be landing soon. We did so, and began packing up our laptops and other belongings. Pretty soon we were exiting the plane onto Kansas ground.

John had never been in this airport so I walked with him to all the places he needed to go. When we finally got to the area where loved ones were waiting for passengers, he turned and hugged me.

"Hey, it was great meeting you. You're pretty fuckin' awesome." he said while chuckling (which I thought was probably the sexiest thing ever).

"Hey, you too! It was pretty fun!"

"Would it be weird if I asked for your number? Maybe we can share some movies and music tips or somethin'." He looked like an awkward teenager trying to ask a girl to a dance.

"Oh, no! I mean yes! Well, I mean--no it's not weird, yes you can have my number."

He laughed and we swapped phones to enter in our numbers. Well, I put my name and number (along with a bad selfie) on his phone, while he filled out basically everything on the "New Contact" form in my phone. I had his face, number, birthday, interests, and he left a note in the contact that says "Aliens are totally real, btw." We hugged again and I told him I'd be in touch and we parted. I saw my mom and sister waiting for me with a sign, and walked over to greet them. I hadn't realized, that they witnessed everything that just happen