“We don't leave each other,” Ivy and Dallas both repeated solemnly. They nodded to each other, each affirming the promise.
“Okay, don't worry about it anymore. We're just going to watch our movie,” Laura said, hitting the play button. The movie started with a flurry of color, and the two kids focused on the screen.
With them occupied, Laura pulled up her phone and quickly pulled up her news app. Her finger hovered over the icon. Did she really want to look this up? What if it was him? Did she really want to know? The idea that it was Ethan's jet missing terrified her. But, if she didn't look it up, she could pretend it wasn't him. It was someone else. He was safe until she knew for certain that he wasn't. It wasn't real until she read about it.
She pulled up her text messaging app instead.
Please call me.
She hit send to Ethan and chewed on her bottom lip. She made it thirty seconds before opening up her news app and searching for the story on the missing plane.
The story was just coming out, so there weren't very many details yet. The owner of the plane and those on board hadn't been released yet. All that she could find out was that it was a private airplane leaving from Los Angeles to arrive in Denver. There was an engine issue, and the plane had rerouted through Las Vegas, but it hadn't shown up yet.
She peered at the picture, trying not to make it too obvious to Ivy and Dallas what she was looking at. The plane in the picture looked smaller than the one she'd seen Ethan get on. And Ethan wasn't technically flying into Denver, he was flying into the local Silver Springs Airport, but that wouldn't make as good a news story.
She sighed and put her phone away. She couldn't say that it was or wasn't his plane for sure. She wouldn't know until he texted her he was fine or the news announced the owner of the airplane. She was going to have just to wait.
She tried to focus on the movie, but she couldn't. All she could think about was how she was going to tell Ivy and Dallas that Ethan's plane was gone. That someone else they loved had gotten on an airplane and never come back. It didn't seem fair. She wasn't sure she was strong enough to go through it all again.
Her parents' death still made her wake up gasping in the night from nightmares of smoke-filled planes and looming mountain crashes. More than once, she'd dissolved into tears because someone would walk past her wearing her mother's favorite perfume. She couldn't drive past their old home without breaking her heart. How was she going to do this again?
She thought she felt the phone vibrate and quickly checked it, hoping for a message from Ethan. But it was just a notification that she had been invited to another game on Facebook. She nearly threw the phone across the room.
She needed to know if he was okay. She needed to know he hadn't left her. Her heart struggled in her chest and her filled with tears. She needed him. She depended on him.
She loved h
im.
And he was going to leave her just like her parents did. He was going to disappear in a puff of smoke and leave her hurting and alone again. She wasn't going to have any say in her future yet again.
She should never have let herself get attached to him. She'd fallen in love, and he was gone. There was no happy ending for her because even if this wasn't his plane, even if he was fine, this was going to happen every time he flew
She would be a worried mess every time he left her to get on that stupid plane. She wasn't ready. Someday, she knew she would be able to handle it, but that wasn't today. Today, the wound her parents' death had left on her heart was still too fresh. She couldn't do this.
She needed to step away from him. She needed to put in some distance so that it wouldn't hurt so much if anything did happen to him. She wasn't ready to let someone into her life who could leave again.
She sniffled and wiped her cheek. She wasn't in a good place for a relationship. It wasn't fair to Ethan. He deserved someone who could love him without freaking out every time he got on an airplane. He deserved someone who didn't have abandonment issues.
She needed to end things, or it would only end up hurting them both. It was better if she just cut it off between them now while things were still forming. It would hurt less than if they waited.
She nodded to herself. It was the right decision. It was for the best.
The phone rang in her hand, startling her from her thoughts. She quickly read the caller ID and let out the biggest sigh of relief. It was him.
“Hey,” she said, answering the phone. She slid out from under the kids and went into her bedroom.
“Laura, you seriously don't need to message me fifty times during the flight,” he told her, his voice frustrated. “My phone is off. I will call you when I get off the plane. My phone didn't stop chirping for thirty seconds the moment I turned it on. I was afraid something serious had happened to you.”
His words only solidified that what she was going to do was the right thing. This wasn't a good match. She was too clingy right now. He didn't need her craziness.
“I know,” she said softly.
“You know? Then why do you do it?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “There's a plane missing. It was supposed to land in Denver, and it didn't,” she explained calmly. “It was on the news, and I freaked out. I thought it was your plane.”
The silence on the other end was deafening.