always and forever

⎡ 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕖𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ⎦

    Miss Anderson and Miss Marshall, please make your way to Gate 17 in the West Wing.  I glanced at Bryn with half an eyebrow raised in panic. I could feel it, building like an unstoppable snowball in the pit of my stomach. I cannot concentrate on anything else that I'm doing. The next step is my heart starting to beat harder and faster, adrenaline levels rise, my brain starting to fire out negative thoughts like a machine gun. It feels like my skin has another hot skin on the outside, like a bin bag. It moved over my body and with no intent of ever releasing me. The negative thoughts keep coming like waves on rocks.

    What?

    I grabbed my phone out of my pocket before breaking into a sprint beside Bryn who seemed equally confused and if not more panicked than I was. My phone said it was only 3:23 am and I showed Bryn by wildly waving my arms and my phone in front of her face while we ran. Her panicked expression dimmed although not by much as we continued to run through the airport. Again. 

    As we gunned towards the West Wing, we passed the waiting area and I quickly cast my eyes around although I couldn't see neither a fleck of Nick's chocolate hair or latte skin which meant either he wasn't here or I was going blind. Bryn turned around as I slowed down.

    "He's not here!" she snapped, looking around wildly for signs, "besides, we'll find him later! Just keep running!" She screamed over her shoulder as she took off running again. Her voice shook with nerves and I realised that she was probably equally frazzled as I was however, instead of her nerves jumping in the same direction like mine did, hers jumped in different emotional directions like panic, worry, fear and paranoia. I stumbled as the voice blared out of the PA systems again:

    Second call for Miss Anderson and Miss Marshall. Please make your way to Gate 17 in the West Wing. 

    Just run. Just get to the West Wing. Just get to Gate 17. I mentally yelled at myself. Bryn began to slow down and I shot her a grateful look. People had started to explore the different sectors and it was beginning to get hard trying to spot my beautiful but also rather short Latino friend in the crowds. 

    My feet skidded to a halt, a mistake I had learnt from last time. In this moment, distance was all I needed and everything keeping me from my destination although there was a small, minor issue. I had never been remotely close to the West Wing until today. I grabbed Bryn's hand, pushing through the crowds in almost a crazy desperation.

    I've never been into the West Wing I screamed, let alone Gate 17! How am I supposed to find something I've never seen? I spotted a wide, black and flashing sign and I almost dropped to the floor with relief. I glanced over at Bryn who looked the same. There was a tenseness to her muscles that makes her more like a mannequin than a woman of flesh and bone. I could see in her eyes how much she wanted to melt onto the soft foam of a mattress, wrapped in eider-down, and drift into the world of dreams. Yet our brains were a violent whirl of stupidity, trying to organise the chaos in our lives and the airport which was a lot easier said than done. 

    We reached the boards, breaths being ripped out of our mouths in an attempt to regain them at twice the speed we were breathing them out. Bryn moved to the right, looking for the gates while I studied the outline of the airport structure. It seemed that the East Wing was for gates 1 to 10 and 21 to 30 while the South Wing was for shops and restaurants, the North Wing was for the entrance and the waiting area connected all the sections together. 

    The waiting area was vast quite like the sea. I suddenly felt a surge of anxiety on the thought of trying to manoeuvre through it. I couldn't even see the end of the one row of chairs let alone the entrance to the West Wing. Thankfully, Bryn and I's combined bulk made it hard to be separated although we got pushed around a lot. Each person in the crowd moved as if unseeing hands dragged them this way and that, pulling their eyes to one thing and then another. They respond in predictable ways, each of them with a goal to achieve for the day. But underneath that is free will, the ability to truly choose their own path.