At the gate, I nearly ruined everything when I saw him standing near the jet bridge in his uniform, laughing easily with the first officer. My heart jumped like I was twenty-six again, meeting him for the first time at that same airport a lifetime ago, and I ducked behind a pillar so he wouldn’t spot me.
My heart jumped like I was twenty-six again.
I boarded with the last group, slipped into seat 14C, pulled my hair forward, and kept my face down as I passed the cockpit door. The cabin doors closed. The plane pushed back from the gate.
Then Terrence’s voice came over the speaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain.”
I smiled to myself like an idiot, waiting for the usual announcement — altitude, weather, estimated arrival time, the same steady cadence I’d fallen asleep listening to on a hundred different flights over the years.
But then he paused.
But then he paused.
“Before we get going tonight,” Terrence said, his voice carrying a slight, unfamiliar tremor, “I’d like to do something I’ve never once done on a flight before.”
The cabin quieted, the way it does when a captain’s tone shifts from routine to something clearly personal.
“There’s a very special someone on this plane tonight,” he said. “Someone who means absolutely everything to me.”
Someone who means absolutely everything to me.
