I sit on an airplane, all by myself. All the other passengers have picked up their trash, brushed crumbs off their shirts, fixed their masks, struggled to get their suitcases out of the overhead compartment, and shimmied down the narrow aisle, trying desperately not to hit another flyer with their bags. The single flight attendant’s seat is in front of me, next to a microwave or something of that sort. I am waiting for the flight attendant; my backpack sits on my lap; my suitcase sits in the aisleway.
I woke up at 4:30 this morning to get to the airport by 6 and have the paperwork signed by 7. I had said goodbye to my mom and my 4 siblings, Maddox, Dailyn, Walker, and Collete at the hotel, and my dad at the airport. Even though I've taken a trip like this every year, I'll still miss them.
The masks are different from the other trips, though. Never before have I had to wear a piece of thick cloth on my face for 8 hours. It's odd. And a bit uncomfortable, but I am pushing through because, on the other planes, a voice above our heads had told us if we didn’t wear masks, we could get kicked off. That can't happen. A flight attendant checked all our faces for masks as well. But on this plane, I didn’t pay attention to what the voice said, or if a flight attendant was checking my face. Artemis Fowl was on.
The row I’m in only has one seat, for me, and even though I have barely any legroom, that is the best thing about the small, low-ceilinged airplane. Apart from the fact that it can take me to her.
Our friendship started as pen-pals. She had loopy, quick writing that meant "Crafter;" I had straight, even writing that meant "Writer." We talked about our day, our family. I started using slang to save time writing. Then, we started texting. Kid-texting, I mean. The one that is monitored by your parents. Slowly, our relationship grew into more than two random girls whose moms were friends on social media. We'd fan-girl over the Harry Potter books. I'd show her a picture of a drawing or a piece of writing and she'd freak out. She'd show me a picture of her homemade dollhouses and I'd freak out. It was almost perfect. We schemed- dreamed, more like- to meet each other one day. Little did she know, so were our parents.
Back to the present.
As the first one on the plane, you’d think I’d be the first one off. But I must wait for a flight attendant to take me to my next stop. This time it's the pilot. He's not wearing a uniform, or even a nice outfit, as I expected. The other flight attendants who took me from plane to plane wore uniforms, make up, and sometimes a badge with the initials “UM” on them- unaccompanied minor. But this pilot wears an orange vest and ripped up boots.
"You ready?" he asks me, smiling.
"Yeah," I say, nodding.
We walk down the stairs into blinding sunlight, his shoes flopping and me holding my suitcase up, so it doesn't bang on the hard metal stairs. Walking into the airport, I see nothing and no one. All the passengers on my plane seem to have vanished, and it looks like the TriCounty Airport does not care much for restaurants, gift shops, vending machines, or even staff and more than two terminals, for that matter. Perhaps it's from COVID-19. Or maybe they want only the necessities at this airport. Either way, it's strange, but I don't really care about that. Just her.
I step on the pilot’s flopping boot a few feet from the stairs. He does not trip or lose his gait, probably because the soles of his boot are not connected to the shoe properly. “I’m sorry,” I say as he turns around and smiles. “I do that all the time,” I continue, laughing. I manage to turn it into a joke instead of an embarrassing scene, thankfully.
The escalators take us up, and I am struggling to hold my excitement. I had told myself I would not look ahead; I would not overreact. I would stay calm and wait until I could see her. But my plan is going out the window. I can’t help but smile and clench my hands as I roll on the balls of my feet. I pick up speed once we get to the hallway, risking stepping on the pilot’s boot again.
I see her mom’s head over the half-wall below the window. She’s smiling, her lips closed and her eyes big. I have seen this face on my mom’s social media before, but the thing that makes me the happiest is that her daughter will be standing next to her. On the verge of running, I pass the pilot, my suitcase banging on the floor.
I see a girl wearing a yellow dress and jeggings, with a pair of glasses, dark, shoulder-length hair, pale skin, and a dropped jaw. “No, no, no, no,” she’s saying over and over as I half-walk, half-run over to the mother-daughter duo. I can see her smiling and laughing as she realizes that I am actually here, on her birthday, and she had no idea. She thought she was going to be picking up one of her mom’s employees, who works with essential oils, and the trip to the airport would be a fun bonus.
Gosh, was she wrong.
I envelop her in a hug for the first time ever, my big arms squeezing her skinny ones. We are stunned, quite frankly. We can’t manage to say much, just smile, laugh, and stare. But I can feel love, surprise, and joy circulating us.
I’m quite sure this is the best birthday present ever.
Then starts one of the best weeks of my life. A week with my best friend, Annie.
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Word Count: 1,000
Draft Number: # Final
*Entry for a nonfiction writing competition*
This is a true story :). So, I think we were supposed to write about COVID-19 or the recent protests, but COVID didn't really change anything for me (Just a thirty-day stay-at-home order) and I didn't want to write about race XD. I chose this idea over another idea I had because I had to wear a mask. Annie is a few years younger than me; two, I believe. But this really was fun! I liked writing about it :).
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