The Girl in the Jean Jacket & The Guy in the Plaid Shirt

III

III

Five years later

"Attention passengers for flight sixty-seven, we are sorry to inform you that your flight is delayed two hours due to technically difficulties. We recommend taking this time to use the restroom or buy some refreshments and apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you."

The intercom clicks off, and I refrain from throwing the flight attendant a glare by running a frustrated hand down my face. The rough stubble on my cheeks stems from traveling complications like this. Even though I've been going through this same routine for years this is still one of the reasons why I despise traveling by plane. There always seems to be a problem, or "technical difficulties" as they so politely like to put it.

I run my hand through my hair and down the back of my neck. My eyes catch on to my dangling plaid shirt sleeve, and my frustration now stems from the fact that I lost the end button. I'm forced to roll both sleeves up to my elbow, so the families sitting around me don't give me dirty looks when their children precariously wander in my direction. Wouldn't want a torn shirt sleeve getting me dubbed as anything other than a tired twenty-five-year-old.

My terrible posture also isn't helping me look less like a hobo, but I still find my butt sliding further down in the uncomfortable plastic chair. My duffle bag is still propped between my legs, and my gaze is still glued straight ahead at the gate across from mine. Most of the people look just as uncomfortable as I am. They either have their heads ducked into the screens of their smart phones and ear buds stuck inside their ears, or have their heads tilted up towards the ceiling as they sleep. The sleeping people look surprisingly peaceful despite the stiffness of these chairs and the minimal chatter. The thought of sleep tempts me, but I can't bring myself to close my eyes.

"Attention passengers for flight sixty-eight," the intercom blares and jerks all the sleeping people awake. "We will now begin boarding . . ." The intercom keeps speaking, but I stop listening. Instead, I focus on how all the people with earbuds are slowly sucked from their smartphone oblivion by the people who heard the announcement.

All the people begin shuffling into a line, but my expression remains void of any emotion. That's probably another reason why a few families avoided occupying the chairs next to me. I've been cursed with a neutral expression that appears murderous, but really all I'm thinking about is how I could really go for a big slice of pepperoni pizza, and a tall glass of ice-cold water that doesn't taste like it was scooped from a toilet. I swear, water tastes different from place to place, and I love nature as much as the next guy, but water bottles at least provide a sense of uniformity.

I go to run another hand over my face, but that's when I spot something in the crack between my pointer and middle finger. My hand freezes in that halfway position over my face, and my skin blurs as my eyes go into focus. Like a camera, my mind zooms in on a small red heart. 

My mind whirls, and I feel as if I'm being sucked back into a time warp. For a split second, an image of a petite girl in a jean jacket reaching for a book off a display table in a bookstore flashes into my line of vision before it disappears. Like an old home movie more images flash by me. The quick glance of hazel eyes, the brush of a brown strand of hair, and the way a smile lit up her entire face. That damn smile that I could never seem to erase from my memory no matter how hard I tried. That damn smile that, to this day, still seems to be compared to all the others.

I blink my eyes a few times, and I'm reminded that I'm not only still awake, sitting in the middle of an airport, but also that all the images my brain conjured up lead back to that tiny red heart merely ten feet away from me. My own heart squeezes inside my chest because that tiny red heart is attached to a jean jacket and not on a My Little Pony backpack, I rationally concluded it would be. The denim material is draped over the top of a small black suit case, and I trail my eyes up the handle until they stop on the hand gripped tightly around it.