Flight A2783

"So," Harry. "To start, we should both take a gulp."

I just look at him. "You really want to get the ball rolling, huh?"

"The first sip is always the hardest. Best to get it over with quickly," Harry replies cheerfully. "Cheers." He taps his mini bottle with mine before taking a generous gulp. He winces and makes a face, then looks at me expectantly.

I sigh and take a sip, feeling the fiery sensation slide down my throat. Harry raises his eyebrows, surprised. I didn't wince. No derp faces. Then again, I can hold my liquor. Party baby since '94.

Living the good life.

"I drink a lot," I say, by explanation. And before he opens his mouth, I say, "But I am not an alcoholic, so stop."

Harry grins. "I wasn't going to say that." He pauses. "But whoever smelt it dealt it."

I roll my eyes. "That only applies to farts."

"Nope. It applies to everything," Harry says seriously. Good god. This boy took one sip and already he's drunk. "I am not drunk," he says, as if reading my mind. "Not yet," he adds with a dimpled grin.

If I wasn't drunk, that smile probably could have made me. I bite my lip and sigh. "Let's just get this over with, okay? The sooner I get drunk, the better. I might even be more pleasant then," I say, squaring my shoulders. "And just know," I say by warning, "I already have alcohol in my system." I make a face. "I have a head start, which makes this unfair."

"Nope," Harry says. "This just makes it more interesting. Let's go over the rules, shall we?" He doesn't wait for me to agree. "You say two things that are true, one thing that's a lie. The other person has to guess which one is a lie. If you're wrong, you drink." He grins. "Cool?"

I glare at him. "I go first." I take a moment to think.

"Any day now."

I ignore this. I should start easy so I can really get the ball rolling when I'm drunk and don't give as much of a fuck what I say. "Okay. I got drunk for the first time when I was twelve, I had a pixie haircut up until fifteen, and my first kiss was when I was ten."

Harry raises his eyebrows. "Wow." He just stares at me as he thinks, and I can practically see him trying to imagine me with a pixie. "Your first kiss was at ten. That's the lie."

"Nope. The first time I got drunk was when I was fifteen," I say smugly. "Drink up."

Harry grins and takes a hearty swig. Slight wince. He's got a buzz going already. "My turn." He sits and thinks about it, and I decide to throw his words back in his face.

"Any day now."

He makes a face at me, and then lets out a breath. "My favorite drink is apple juice, my hair was blonde until I was three years old, and my parents are not divorced."

I roll my eyes. "Don't coddle," I say, though I know full well that I'm coddling.

"I'm not," he says. "So which is it?"

"You're parents aren't divorced. That's a lie. Basically more than half marriages end in divorces. Hell, mine are," I say cheerfully.

"Well aren't you full of interesting facts," Harry says flatly. "You're turn."

"I don't give blowjobs ever, my first boyfriend was an Asian kid shorter than me, and my favorite food is French fries."

Harry snorts. "Your first boyfriend was an Asian kid? Nah, that can't be true."

I frown. "Damn."

Harry grins and continues. "My first kiss was in a forest, my sister's name is Anne, and I've considered shaving my head."

"You're considering shaving your head," I say confidently. "That's the lie."

Harry grins widely. "Wrong. Drink up." My mouth drops open, but I just grab the bottle and take a swig. "My sister’s name is Gemma."

Fuck. This game is going to go on forever.

***

To spare you the boring rounds of pathetic coddling, I'll skip that part. About three turns in, we're both pretty buzzed out. We both started with three mini-bottles, which hold about two gulps each.

I have one full bottle left, and Harry has half a bottle left. I’m sure you can tell who’s winning. Moi.

I decide to stop coddling. By now, my mind is a bit fuzzy. I’m in a don’t-give-a-fuck mood. Why the fuck not let out the important shit. Yolo.

"The first time I got drunk, I was raped, people called me Sipping Brandy because I gave blowjobs in the bathroom, and my first relationship lasted two months," I say, running a hand through my hair. My speech is kind of jumbled, but still comprehendible. If that’s even a word.

What in the actual fuck. I’m an English major with a minor in creative writing. I should know if that’s a word. That fact in itself should show you how drunk I am right now.

"You got raped," Harry says smugly. "That's the lie."

I look away from him and bite my lip, closing my eyes. "Wrong. Drink up." Stop. Stop it. Don’t cry. I will not cry.

Crying is for pussies.

I’m a survivor. I am a strong, smart, and beautiful woman in America-oh wait. No I’m not. I’m flying somewhere over the ocean. Ha.

Damn. Sooo wasted.

Harry doesn't do anything of the sort. "Wha-?"

I hold up my hand. "Don't. Just drink. I don't want to talk about it."

I remember every second of it. I was so pissed drunk I couldn't see straight. But I remember every detail. It was a senior who did it. I know his name, his face, and I know his voice.

"Brandy I'm so sor-" Harry says quietly.

"Don't. Let's just move on, okay? Forget it," I say quietly. "It's your turn."

Harry frowns and takes his allotted gulp. He swallows and stares at me for a second, his eyes so sad and so confused at the same time.

I can’t take the way he’s looking at me. Shit. Stop. Stop it. Please stop looking at me like that. Like I’m a fucking kicked puppy. “It’s your turn,” I repeat stiffly, looking out the window.

“I-“ Harry stops and lets out a breath. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.” I just look at him. “We can stop.’ He looks down at his empty bottles. “If you want.”

I shrug, trying to make my expression unbothered and unaffected. Harry nods and doesn’t say anything else. I bite my lip and reach for my last mini bottle. It’s completely full. I twist off the tiny metal cap and chug it down, setting it sloppily onto the tray before me. I lean back and recline my seat, disappearing from Harry’s view. I shut my eyes tight and curl up on my side. I can feel the vodka making its way through my system now. It’s finally working. A cold numbing spreads throughout my body.

“Shh, Brandy, shh,” an eerily familiar voice whispers in my head. “It’ll be okay.” I shiver, trying to shake the cold from my body. His voice is like an icy bucket of cold water dumping over my head. He made me feel dirty. He still makes me feel dirty. He had said that as he sat me down on the bed. I had believed him, not thinking anything would go beyond kissing.

Why would a senior want to fuck a little freshman like me anyways?

That was not the highlight of my high school career. Not at all. And instead of being known as the victim of rape, I was known as the girl who was stupid enough to let herself get raped. It was all my fault, apparently.

And they’re right. It is my fault. I let myself go to that party. I let myself get pissed drunk. I let him take me upstairs. I could have prevented everything. But I didn’t. It’s my entire fault, and there’s nothing I can change now, five years later.

That’s why I haven’t-

No. Stop. Stop thinking about it. I’m not helping myself. There’s no point.

My eyes flutter open and taking in the bright blue sky just outside my window. And then they flutter shut again, and I can feel myself drifting off, and the darkness welcomes me with open arms, and I fall into them.

You like that description? Yeah. That’s why I’m a creative writing minor. Who am I kidding?

I pass out.

***

So I didn’t pass out literally. Obviously. I mean come on. If you believed me then obviously you have nothing going on in that coconut of yours. Coconut. Noggin. Melon. You know. Your brain-slash-head. Whichever one you would prefer to use to refer to that particular anatomy.

My eyes flutter open and I sit up slightly, putting my seat in its original position, but the seat comes up superfast and thumps me in the back. “Oomph.” Yeah, I actually made that sound for real. Hope you enjoy that irrelevant information. I do that a lot by the way, provide people with useless information.

“Oh, hey you’re awake,” Harry says, glancing up at me from his phone screen.

“No fucking shit, Sherlock,” I mutter running a hand through my hair. Harry doesn’t seem to notice my reply. He just sends me shifty glances, but that’s about it.

My hair’s all tangled and stuff. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I reach down and grab my purse and pull out a brush and run it through my hair because no one likes tangled hair. Unless you do. Because I definitely don’t. Because then when you want to run your fingers through it, you can’t because it gets fucking stuck and it hurts like a mother.

I once read a book where this girl and guy where making out and the dude like, put his fingers in the girl’s hair and tried to run his fingers through it, but that shit was pretty fucking tangled and his hand just got stuck. Talk about embarrassing. Awko taco. Since I’ve read that book I’ve brushed my hair a lot.

Wow. I just rambled about tangled hair. I swear I’m not like this when I’m writing for my classes. I promise. My professors tell me I have “great promise” but I don’t know man they might just be shitting me.

I put my brush back, pull my laptop out and set it onto the tray because someone (i.e. most likely harry or the bitchy stewardess from earlier) was kind enough to clear it off for me.

Time to sink into YouTube ‘cuz, you know, that’s what I do when I’m bored. Just watch other people live their lives because I obviously don’t have one.

And it’ll help me keep my mind off what happened…earlier.

I glance over at harry, who happens to be staring at me at this exact moment. He blushes. Aw. How adorable. “How long was I out?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow.

“You mean how long were you sleeping for?” Harry clarifies, raising his eyebrows once he gets over his initial humiliation. I just look at him because I’m pretty sure he knows exactly what I meant and is probably just repeating it for his own benefit. “About forty-five minutes or so. I dunno.”

“Hmm.” I turn back to my laptop and plug my earphones in.

“You make a lot of cryptic sounds,” Harry mutters. I ignore this. Maybe I should do some research on this Juan-I mean One-Direction. I type in ‘one direction’ into the search bar on YouTube and like 2986427564 results come up. Not really. More like 500,000, but you know what I mean.

What Makes You Beautiful. Interesting.

An agonizing three minutes forty –six seconds later, the song is over.

I pull my earphones and I find Harry eyeing me with a smirk. “So what do you think?” He asks smugly, as if he expects me to actually like it. He’s been creeping on me. Then again, I was creeping on him earlier so I shouldn’t be talking.

I give him a flat look. “You’re music is shit.”

Harry gives me a look that I can only describe as offended. “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Listen to another song. You might be able to formulate a more accurate opinion.”

“This isn’t my fucking physics class. I’m not formulating a hypothesis,” I say flatly. I hate science. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. Except biology. That’s shit’s okay. But math and science should never go together. Ever. If they ever get married or some ridiculous shit, I propose a petition for them to get divorced.

“Listen to something else. Like ‘little things’ or something,” Harry says determinedly.

I scowl and then click that one because what the fuck. We still have about nine hours of flying left and not much to do. Actually plenty to do but I don’t really want to think about it.

“Your hand fits in mine like it’s made just for me…”

Okay. So the song is respectable. Ish.

“Hmm,” I grunt when it’s over.

“So?” Harry says expectantly.

“Was I supposed to love it?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. ‘Was I supposed to cry? Should I be cumming all over your feet right now/”

Harry grins. “Maybe.”

I just shake my head. “Sorry Styles, but you’ll have to do better than that,” I say. “You know what artist I can cry about?” Harry waits because he knows that I’m going to tell him whether he wants to know or not. Actually, I don’t know if he knows or not. I’m just going to assume that he does. “The 1975. Or The Neighbourhood. Or Haim. Or Artic Monkeys.”

Harry looks mildly amused. “The Neighbourhood is pretty good.”

"Pretty good?!" I screech, so loudly that a woman across the aisle shoots me a glare. I glare right back. "Their music is art," I hiss. "Art," I repeat for emphasis. Insert Josh from 'Drake and Josh' here. You know you know what I'm talking about. Then insert Drake's reaction there because that's how Harry looks right now. I take a deep breath.

"You okay? You need some air?" Harry asks cheekily, reaching up and turning on the air conditioning knob-thing to full blast at my face.

I glare at him and turn it off. Then turn his on. His chestnut curls flop around madly. I snort. "You should be in a hair commercial."

Harry snorts, and then puts on this seductive face that really shouldn't be directed at me. Although I want him to. But he shouldn't. Because he is a god and I am a pathetic mortal. "Try Pantene shampoo today," Harry says in his low growly voice, his eyes smoldering.

Fuck. This pains me to admit it, but his voice does something wack to my nether regions. Totes wack.

Anyhoo, he grins when I laugh a little. "You could be the blond one and I'll be the brunette and we'll stand back to back 'Men in Black' style."

I snort. "Yeah, okay."

There's a lull in our conversation as we both go back to what we were doing before. So awk. I mean awkward. I should use proper grammar, but I'm still buzzed from earlier.

I settle down with some Troye Sivan videos. I'm just about pissing my pants with laughter as I watch fetus Troye shiver in a home video when Harry taps my shoulder. I cackle and hold up a finger, the universal signal for 'fuck off for a minute'.

Oh. Is that not what it means? Sorry.

Troye is washing the dishes and the faucet hose like goes out of wack and sprays him in the face and I'm crying out of one eye (the whole eye-watering situation) when Harry taps my shoulder again. I huff and pause my video, shipping off my earphones and glare at him.

"What do you want?" I hiss, glaring at him, but the fire in my eyes like, die, when I see the sea glass color of his eyes. Gorgeous.

"Would you, Miss Brandon Nicole-Marie Edwards, like to watch a movie with me?" Harry asks with a half smile, and his eyes sparkling. Wow. He remembers my full name. Impressive.

I raise my eyebrows and smile a little. "Are you asking me on a date?"

Harry snorts. "Going on a date would require traipsing to another location, so no. This is not a date."

I pout. "Aw."

Harry just looks at me and sniffs impatiently. "Yes or no?"

"Fine," I say. "Are we watching illegally on my laptop or from the airline's shitty selection?" I ask.

Harry makes a face. "Illegally."

"Let's watch We Are the Millers," I suggest, exiting my Troye video. Bye Troye-Boy. "I heard it's hilarious."

Harry shrugs. "I guess. But I've already seen it."

I shrug. "You can see it again."

"ME-GA-SHARE-dot-com," I enunciate as I type it into the address bar.

"Do you really have to say it while you type it in?" Harry asks, cocking an eyebrow.

"It helps my thought process," I say dismissively, typing in the movie title into the search bar on the website. "You ready for this?"

Harry just looks at me. "You make it sound as if you're about to go down on me or something."

I glare at him and slap his chest. "You wish." I lift my armrest and balance it on both our trays. "I never give blow jobs, remember?" I add carefully, glancing at him.

A look flashes over his face, but it's gone before I can tell what it means.

***

Insert dying seal sound here.

That's what I sound like when I laugh during the movie. That, or some sort of whale-slash-dolphin-slash-duck-mating-call. You can choose whichever one sounds the least attractive to you because that's what I sound like. I recommend the duck mating call. That one's the most accurate, probably. You should look up what that sounds like.

"This is literally the best thing ever," I gasp, fanning myself. Harry just watches me with this little smile on his face. "The best."

"…wait, you guys are getting paid?"

Oh my god. I just realized something. This is a breakthrough. Seriously.

You know the guy Will Poulter, the one who plays Kenny in the movie? He roomed with Jack Harries for a while. Holy fuck. Can fuck be holy? I don't think so...but if I fucked Jack Harries that'd be pretty holy. At least to me. Come on. You can't tell me you wouldn't. Him or Finn. Either one really.

Anyhoo, there's this YouTube video of Will Poulter and Jack. (It's basically Jack doing nothing, yet it has a million views) And I don’t know. It’s beautiful. A work of art.

If you compare his ‘Kenny’ voice it’s just…ugh. If you listen I’m 99.9999999% sure you’ll get pregnant. So use protection and all that.

“It’s entertaining to watch you piss your pants laughing,” Harry says, smiling as I laugh again.

I roll my eyes and flip him off. “Shut up. I can’t hear Kenny.” Harry’s smiles widens, and those damn dimples are popping and I can’t handle-

And all of a sudden, my stomach drops and, and my heart is in my throat as the plane dips suddenly, and then again. And again.

“We seem to be getting some turbulence-“ No shit. “-please fasten your seatbelts.”

I don’t realize that I’m clutching Harry’s hand until he squeezes my own, gently, and looks me steadily in the eyes.

“We’ll be fine.”

I nod and shut my eyes, thankful and comforted for the first time by Harry’s presence.