I nodded again and closed my eyes, laying my hand on top of hers and trying to steel my resolve to be the bigger person, no matter what.
* * * *
"I'm sorry about your situation this morning, Miss Burke." The pretty flight attendant glanced up from her computer to me and back down again.
"It's my fault. I should have set two alarms, I guess." I shrugged and offered the woman a warm smile.
"No. These things happen to us all." She pressed her finger to her lips and clicked a few buttons on her keypad. "We have two more flights today. One leaves in three hours and the next around five tonight. It's a late flight, which you might not want, but it's up to you."
"A three hour wait or a nine hour wait? I'm going with the three hour."
I pulled out my phone to text my father, but decided against it. If something happened, God-forbid, and I had to text him again, he would blow a gasket that was likely to hit me all the way in California.
"Sounds good. I'll change your ticket and we'll see you at gate B-25 in a few hours. Let’s get your bags checked in for the new flight, then you can go grab you a good book and try to relax."
She handed me the new boarding pass. Getting my luggage checked in was a nightmare and a half, but everything had to get out of the dorms. They closed down during the week of Christmas for cleaning. Besides, I was done at UCLA, anyway. My time there was over and I was on the road full speed ahead to growing up.
The thought was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.
I took her suggestion after getting through security. A romance novel and a Snickers bar would be more than enough fun to get me through the short wait. My father would be angry, but he would get over it. Besides, there would certainly be something else to stoke his angst over before too long. Nothing I ever did was right. How anyone worked for him was beyond me.
I checked my phone again as I slumped down in a cold plastic chair and saw that I had a few texts from Jessie and one from Seth, but nothing from my dad. That I expected him to start caring any minute about how it might feel for me to be stuck at the airport alone was stupid. I was a grown-ass woman, as he had reminded me many times over the last few years, and honestly, he was right. I was twenty-three and had a Master’s degree. I'd say that was pretty much grown.
After spending the first hour trying to get into the romance novel and not getting anywhere, I pulled out my small sketch pad and let out a long breath. I needed to work on a few new designs for my spring line that I wanted to kick off my new venture with. I let my eyes wander around, taking in the styles and color palates of the better dressed females walking through the airport and let my mind explode with options.
My fingers scribbled furiously as I sketched out three new tops and a short summer dress that would only do well in warm weather states.
"Attention all United passengers on Flight 2543. We're looking for anyone who might take a two-hundred-dollar voucher to move to the five o'clock flight. We're a packed flight today and we have a standby passenger who's in need of getting home. If you're willing, please come visit us at the desk."
"Nope," I muttered and turned my attention back to my drawing.
Someone dropped down in the seat next to me with a loud sigh and I glanced over at the young guy appearing to be nineteen or twenty.
He looked my way and nodded. "Hi."
"Hi." I returned to my project, not wanting to start a conversation with a stranger. I didn't like half my friends and most of my family. Strangers were definitely out.
"That's pretty." He leaned a little closer as his dark gray eyes moved across my sketch pad. He was attractive, but in a rock star sort of way. The tats on his arms were done in various colors, some of them beautiful and some not so much. He had to have let a drunken friend do a few of them.
"Oh. Thanks." I set the pad down in my lap and turned to him, resigning myself to a short conversation. "You heading home for the holidays?"
"Trying to." He lifted a can of Sprite to his lips and took a long drink. "My parents are in Maine and for some damn reason, I'm supposed to stop through Colorado to get there. I've been bumped from the flight, so it looks like a long afternoon."
"Sorry to hear that." I crossed my legs and glanced down at my sketch pad, not really sorry at all.
"Yeah. That call they put over the intercom was for me."
That got my attention. "Why are you so desperate to get on this next flight? Are the connector flights all booked up if you don't make this one?"
"There's that, and the fact that my mother is going into emergency surgery at seven tonight." He shrugged, turning his gaze away from me.
"Oh. That's not good." I didn't want to dive into her personal business, but he was leaving me little choice in the matter.
"She's been battling cancer for the last two years, but I guess it's metastasized. She's not doing well." He reached up and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose as my heart ran cold.
His story was a little too similar to mine.
"I'm so sorry. Maybe this surgery will be exactly what she needs." My phone buzzed and I lifted it to my face to read the text, grateful for the momentary break.