The Trouble with Flying (24 page)

Sarah: :-)

Aiden: :-)

Aiden made me put my phone away at 11 pm my time so I could get a decent sleep and be fresh for today, but I was so excited it took me at least two hours to fall asleep. Then I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep because I kept thinking about him. At least it kept me from thinking about the reading tonight, which, now that it’s only two hours away, is beginning to take over my thoughts again.

After a cold shower to try and combat the effects of the heat and humidity—unsuccessful, as always—I get back to my bedroom and see something sitting on my pillow. I pad across the carpet to get a closer look. It’s a blue zoo biscuit with a dolphin on it, sitting on top of a piece of paper with the words ‘I know you’ll be amazing tonight!’ printed on it.

A wide grin is stamped on my face as I pick up the biscuit and the note. I make sure my towel is wrapped securely around me before I walk to Sophie’s room. She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed doing her homework. At least, I assume it’s homework. “Do you know anything about this?” I ask, displaying the biscuit for her to see. She looks up, plastering an innocent expression on her face.

“A biscuit? Why would I know anything about a biscuit?”

That grin is back on my face. “You’re a terrible liar,” I tell her.

“I know.”

“Will you be ready to leave in forty minutes?”

“Yip.”

“And you told Mom and Dad I’m taking you there to see an art exhibition?”

“Yes. There actually is an art exhibition happening there, so it wasn’t even a lie.”

“Which is obviously why they believed you,” I say with a wink.

I hurry back to my room to get ready and try to think about the zoo biscuit and Aiden instead of the audience I’ll soon be standing in front of.

***

Tonight’s event, titled
A Twist in the Tale
, is taking place in the main gallery of the artSPACE. The gallery lights are slightly dimmed, and fairy lights are strung around the room. Ivy twists around the pillars. Paintings interpreting the theme are displayed on the walls, and the poems and short stories being read tonight will all incorporate something relating to the
Twist in the Tale
theme. Chairs are set out between the pillars, but most people are walking around admiring the art.

I wander around the room with Sophie, trying to pay attention to what she’s telling me about the artworks rather than throwing up on them. First there’s a painting by an artist who seems to have taken the theme quite literally. It’s of a cat with a curly pink tale that looks like it belongs to a pig. Next is something a little more intriguing. All that’s visible in the frame of the picture is a man’s foot hovering above a glass running shoe. A woman’s hands are holding the shoe, and it looks like the man’s foot is about to try the shoe on. So this is … Cinderella in reverse. Interesting.

But SO not interesting enough to distract me from my panic. I pull Sophie into a corner and grip her shoulders tightly. “I can’t do this. We need to leave. I’ll send a message to the organiser and say I got sick or something. It’s not exactly a lie, because I’m pretty sure I’m about to be sick all over—”

“You
can
do this, Sarah, and you’re going to be amazing, just like the Zoo Biscuit said.”

“His name is Aiden,” I remind her. We went over this several times in the car.

“Well, he’ll always be Zoo Biscuit to me.”

“I
can’t
do this!” I almost shriek at her.

“Hey, calm down.” She looks around to see if anyone noticed my temporary loss of sanity. “Remember that you’re only going to be talking to me. And I’ve already heard your story at home, so I probably won’t even be listening, which means you’ll really only be talking to yourself. Easy, right?”

“Wrong.”

“Let’s just stay until it’s your turn in the programme. Then if you
really
can’t get up there, we’ll just run out of here.”

We find two seats in the front row that haven’t yet been claimed, and I attempt some deep breathing while everyone else, who seems at least five hundred times calmer than I am, examines the art before slowly finding themselves a place to sit. Sophie shows me the programme for the evening, and I find my name second from the end. WHY? Now I have to sit through every other item before I’m allowed to run away. I’m never going to last that long.

A lady walks to the front of the room. Once the audience is quiet, she thanks everyone for coming and talks briefly about something I try hard to focus on but fail to hear. Then she introduces the first person on the programme, a poet. As he stands and walks to the front, Sophie—my sweet little sister—reaches for my hand. Perhaps it’s less about her being sweet and comforting, though, and more about her planning to yank me back into my seat if I attempt a getaway before it’s my turn.

It’s painful listening to everyone who goes before me, mainly because they’re so darn good. Some of them are practically performing their poetry, never mind simply reading it. Their words are punctuated with dramatic pauses, hand gesticulations, and scary facial expressions.

No way am I doing something like that.

We move closer and closer to my name, and I feel more and more like passing out. When the lady introduces me, Sophie squeezes my hand. “You can do this,” she whispers. “Your story rocks.
Nobody
is gonna see that ending coming.”

I stand up, and instead of running out of here, my shaky legs carry me to the front. I stare at the papers in my hands. They’re a little crumpled by now, and the edges are covered in damp marks from my sweating fingers, but the words are all still there. My words. My story. And Sophie’s right. It
does
rock. I look up at her, refusing to let my eyes wander to the rest of the audience. She gives me an encouraging smile and a thumbs up.

Spread your wings and fly
, that little voice says.

I look back down at the page. I clear my throat, swallow, and begin.

My first instinct is to race through the words as fast as I can, but, with extreme difficulty, I force myself to go slowly and keep breathing. I was taught at school that it’s good to look up at the audience every few moments when reading something, so I glance at Sophie every time I remember to breathe. Other than that, I focus on the story itself. I remember how excited I was when I came up with that twist at the end. I remember Sophie’s gasp when I first read it to her. I remember the poets and their dramatic pauses, and I force myself to hesitate a moment before delivering that final sentence.

Then I lower my pages. I look up and allow myself to see the roomful of people for the first time. Every person’s attention is on me, their hands still and their eyes wide.

Silence.

“Thank you,” I murmur, then hurry back to my seat as the room erupts with applause. It sounds like the same kind of applause they gave to everyone else, but Sophie grips my arm and squeals in my ear.

“That was
amazing
. They all
loved
it.”

I’m floating on a cloud of relief and exhilaration, and I don’t hear a single word the last person says. I tune back in just as the organiser lady thanks everyone once again and invites us all to enjoy the snacks, drinks and artwork.

I stand up and throw my arms around Sophie. “Thank you for coming with me. Thank you for making me do it.”

She laughs. “Well, I was under strict instructions not to let you run away,” she says into my ear.

“Instructions? Instructions from …” My words trail off as my gaze falls on someone behind her. Someone familiar. Someone tall with an adorable grin and a dimple in his left cheek. Someone who can’t
possibly
be standing there for real. “What … how did he …” I pull away from Sophie, who turns to see what I’m looking at.

“Ah. That must be Zoo Biscuit.”

My brain can’t quite process the fact that Aiden is standing in this room—in this
country
!—but my legs know what to do. I run and fling my arms around him. He stumbles backwards into a section of wall between two artworks, but he’s laughing in my ear, so I don’t think he minds that I just about attacked him.

“You rocked that story,” he says to me.

“Who cares about the story?” I pull back slightly, but keep my arms looped around his neck. He’s HERE and he’s HOLDING ME and I’m floating WAY beyond cloud nine right now. More like cloud gazillion and nine. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t really think I’d miss this, did you?”

“But … you live so far away. And you hate flying.”

His blue-green eyes sparkle as he smiles. “I never went home.”

“What?” I shake my head in confusion. “But you said you were leaving.”

He nods. “I did say that. And I did leave. But not for home. I’ve been in Joburg staying with a friend of mine. We studied together until about a year ago when he moved here. After Kelly and I ended things, I told him I was looking for a new direction with my studies. When he heard I was visiting South Africa, he suggested I stay a bit longer and check out the options here.”

“The options here? The options HERE? In South Africa?” Does that mean what I think it means?

“Yeah, well, not everyone wants to leave this country. Some of us think it has a lot going for it. Like the warm climate and the friendly people and—” he raises his hands to gently cup my face “—this one particular amazing girl.”

I open my mouth, but no words come out.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says. “Any objections?”

I shake my head and pull his face closer to mine. Our lips meet, and then I’m shooting beyond the clouds and into the galaxies. I don’t think my feet will ever touch the ground again. His hands are in my hair and I’m pressing him against the wall and I can’t get enough of his lips and his mouth and OH, MAN, this kiss should NOT be happening in public. His lips move across my cheek and down to my neck.

“There are people here,” I remind him breathlessly.

“Oh, yeah.” He pauses, then kisses my nose. “Including your parents.”

“WHAT?” I jump away from him, looking around. Did my parents just see me lip-locking with Aiden? SO embarrassing. I don’t care how old I am, I do not need my parents seeing stuff like that.

“Relax.” Aiden pulls me closer once more. “They said they’d hang out by the snacks and give me a chance to talk to you.”

“You told them about tonight?”

He nods. “I hope you’re not mad at me. I figured that if I were them, I’d hate to miss this. They hid in the back row with me. We didn’t want to freak you out before you went up.”

I take his hands and wrap them around my waist. I stand on tiptoe to kiss his nose. “I’m not mad at you.”

“Do you want to go talk to them?”

I shake my head. “I want you to myself for just a little bit longer. If you’re okay with that.”

“I’m more than okay with that.” He presses his lips against mine for a moment, then says, “We can start working on our happily ever after, which, if I’ve understood all the fairy tales correctly, is supposed to begin the moment after our first kiss.”

“In that case,” I say, “our happily ever after started after you kissed me at the airport.”

“True.” A thoughtful expression crosses his face. “So what does our happily ever after look like then?”

I loop my arms around his neck. “It looks like … secret letters in the backs of books, and hikes in the rain, and challenging each other to face our fears.”

“And texting late at night and first thing in the morning.”

“And misunderstandings and arguments and make-up kisses.”

“And dancing.” He twirls me around and pulls me back.

“Especially crazy happy dancing,” I add with a giggle.

“And the way you smell like the ocean.” He kisses my neck.

“And your accent that makes me want to swoon.”

“And stories and zoo biscuits and biltong.”

“And feeling safe.” I rest my head against his shoulder as he wraps his arms around me. “The right kind of safe.”

“The right kind of safe,” he murmurs. “Even when you have no idea where life will take you next.”

“Even then.”

“This is a happily ever after I can do.”

I smile against his T-shirt and whisper, “Me too.”