Getaway

Chapter 21

Walking into the airport the next day I was disheartened to find that there was a distinct lack of shade in the area where we were supposed to queue up for Passport Control. It didn’t help that our resort guide had actually recommended that we left going through to the waiting area till the last possible minute as apparently there was nothing to do on the other side.

But of course Dad had not listened to that little nugget of advice – and neither had a lot of other people – and so we were stood in a queue full of screaming toddlers and exhausted mothers in the sweltering heat of the day and I was pissed off beyond belief about it.

“Are you excited to go home?” Kyle asked me as we stood in line.

I tapped my foot impatiently and cupped my hand over my eyes so that I could actually see him.

“Sure,” I told him, “I can’t wait to get back to the relentless rain and school.”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Yes Ky,” I sighed.

“At least you met Fletcher,” Kyle pointed out.

The subject of Fletcher had not been brought up in the past twenty four hours, and it wasn’t even like I had been avoiding it. If there was one conclusion I had come to this holiday it was that I had more important things to be worrying about than Australian boys, stuff like trying to get on with life without my Mum and trying to make sure that Kyle didn’t have any more near death experiences.

“It was really nice of him to come say goodbye to me yesterday,” Kyle told me.

My mind – which was half asleep – took a few minutes to process what Kyle had just revealed.

“What?” I asked, “Fletcher came to see you yesterday?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, “he said you’d told him not to but he came and saw us.”

“Oh. Cool. Well that was nice of him I guess.”

Trust Fletcher to go out of his way to say goodbye to my family despite our unresolved fight, he just had to be Mr Nice Guy all the time didn’t he.

My frustration was unfounded and I knew that but that didn’t stop me from feeling a surge of annoyance towards Fletcher, not least because he always seemed to find a way to inadvertently make me feel like a terrible person, I hadn’t said goodbye to his parents after all.

It was too late to consider that now though.

The line moved forward at a mind numbingly slow pace and I found myself slowly falling asleep, the heat of the day and my restless night (it had just been far too hot) combining to make me drowsy. I could slowly feel my skin turning pinker which was unfortunate, all the sun tan lotion was packed in the suitcase, we couldn’t take liquids onto the flight after all, and so there was nothing I could do to stop myself from burning. I cursed the airport yet again for not planning the architectural structure better; they hadn’t taken into account the health risks to people with pale skin queuing for what seemed like eternity.

Eventually we neared the front of the queue and shade became accessible. I scuttled into it, pushing past Kyle and my Dad, who of course both laughed at me. I had inherited my skin tone from my mother, the male members of my family both seemed to have been blessed with skin that looked permanently sun kissed, I wasn’t entirely sure where my genes had gone wrong.

Tapping my foot impatiently, I waited for the family with the two sets of bawling twins (one held onto each hand of the parents) to finish up at the passport desk before they moved to the side and Dad, Kyle and I moved forward.