His Pride is Prejudiced

Chapter Eleven: In The Airplane

Chapter Eleven

In The Airplane 

After five days of writing and rewriting Caleb’s interview—which never even formally happened—I was due back to New York.  My mind was constantly occupied with the problem of how I’m going to explain to my boss on how I got an interview with Caleb Princely after the splashing incident at Elevate.

     Amy brought me breakfast for the five remaining days I have in LA.  I ordered pizza and fast food takeouts for lunch and dinner and tried to keep myself sane by staying in the apartment with my phone turned off.  I've had enough missed calls for a day.  Thank God, I was safe until it was time for me to leave.  I thanked Mr. Woods and Amy for their hospitable service.  I rode a cab to LAX and finally boarded the plane on a Sunday morning.

     A guy in a blue baseball cap, aviator shades, white shirt underneath a checkered button-down and worn-out jeans filled in the window seat right next to me.  My mind somehow had flown to an image that he’s a hijacker and, as me being the person sitting right next to him, he’s going to use me as his hostage.  But, because he was being mindless around his surroundings, I’m guessing he’s just a common passenger with a mysterious get-up.

     He picked up a copy of Zing magazine on the rack attached to the back of the seat in front of us.  I felt my heart leap with happiness as he flipped to the page of my interview with Channing Tatum.

     “I wrote that,” I blurted out of delight.  “I had a great time talking to him,” I said reminiscing that night.  I glanced at the quiet stranger then, looked back down to the page of Channing’s photo which Matt must’ve taken.  “I’m sorry, I just—“  I smiled at the page.  “I’m just happy to see it.”  Feeling embarrassed that he was not responding and has obviously ignored everything I said, I looked straight ahead, avoided myself from looking at him and said, “I see you’re not much of a talker,” I forced out a little chuckle then, peered at him who seemed to be occupied with the article.

     With head down and with a low voice, he finally speaks.  “You wrote this?”

     I breathed in relief.  “Finally, you talked!”  I laughed.  “Yeah, I wrote that.”

     Again, there was silence until he spoke up again.  “Did he say all this?”

     “Yeah,” I nodded with a smile, then, a brief frown of puzzlement.

     What kind of question is that?

     He closed the magazine and put it back in the pocket.  He relaxed in his seat which made me feel uncomfortable.

     “Have you ever felt like you’re not in control of your life?  Like, there’s this person who tells you what to do just to keep you far from falling.”

     I frowned without looking at him.  “Uhm, no.”

     “Have you ever felt like the thought of being just free, you know, being alone without anyone having to trail behind you to guard you all the time?” he asked like he's tired of living.

     “No,” I said oddly.

     “Have you ever thought that a jerk has his own dream girl?” he scoffed, amused with his own question.

     His voice started to sound familiar but I dare not look just yet.  “No,” I said, remembering how pompous Caleb is.

     “She’s not easy to find, though, and we don’t always realize who she is early on in the game,” he paused.