Escaping Reality

Chapter 4: Unlikely Friendship

Suddenly my left pocket started vibrating, cutting my reminiscing short. I groggily reached into my pocket to see who could be messaging me. How was I even getting connection thousands of miles in the sky I thought to myself. It was an automated notification for the school basketball game.

"Don't think I'll be attending that" I muttered to myself.

'What was that" Betty asked, displaying her surprisingly good hearing skills.

"Oh, nothing," I said nonchalantly trying to avoid further conversation. I turned my attention back to my phone and deleted all of my social media, grimacing at the thought of going without digital approval from peers for a week. However, I told myself if I was going to do this I was going to do it right. From this moment forward it was zero dark thirty. I had vowed to not communicate with anyone from my hometown while away. Removing the temptation was the first step.

"So where are you headed?" Betty asked inquisitively after an awkwardly long pause. I felt bad, had she been waiting for me as I slowly went through my apps.

"Oh, I'm a senior in high school so I'm just making my rounds at all the major universities. You know tours and all that good stuff, trying to see what's a good fit." I robotically spit out, almost exactly as I had practiced.

"That's so neat." She said with a sweet smile on her face. "Back in my day people didn't really go far for college, it just wasn't an option. Your generation and all your technology and gadgets let you do so much these days."

"What were you doing in South Dakota," I ask obligatorily, politely keeping the conversation going. She had a sort of irresistible charm to her that almost guilted you into continuing the conversation with her.

"I was just in town to visit my granddaughter, she's a junior at South Dakota State University. I'm so proud of her, she's double majoring in chemistry and biology and is planning on being a big-time surgeon after med school" she bragged while simultaneously scrolling through her camera roll to show me a picture.

I wondered if it was a requirement for grandparents to brag about their grandchildren. The thought of this cute old lady bad-mouthing her grandchildren was so bizarre to me that it prompted a shy smile to come to my lips. Maybe this Betty lady wasn't so bad after all. She sort of reminded me of my grandmother and even had a similar scent, although I had to admit that it was probably typical across the old lady board. We continued to talk about our families, our pasts, our favorite foods, and more. It was like Betty had made a living from striking up conversations, she kept coming with questions.

It hurt my heart to have to lie about the majority of the things I was telling her but I had spent so long planning this I wasn't going to jeopardize it now. Eventually, her questions became so unexpected that I was just spitballing things. I thought I had covered the majority of questions I would be asked but it took Betty about 45 minutes to prove to me otherwise.Eventually, the snack cart made its way around giving me an opportunity to think up an excuse to exit the conversation. I insisted that it would be in both of our best interests to get a little shuteye before we landed and Betty obliged. I reclined my chair with a grimace, hoping that the person sitting behind me wasn't abnormally tall. After shutting the shade and cranking up the air and trying 15 different head positions I was finally comfortable enough to drift off. I closed my eyes, letting my body go limp and my mind go blank.