I slumped down in my seat as we flew along. From the corner of my eye I could see Luke and Cody literally talking over me, remaining engaged in heated discussion the entire time. I couldn’t even imagine what the hell they could be talking about. Condescending or not, Dr. Cody was a doctor, and I distinctly remembered Luke struggling to fit square shapes into round holes. There was a rumor that he was secretly incredibly intelligent and just played dumb to seem more attractive to the idiot cheerleaders that didn’t like to feel like the dumb one with the guys they were with, but I didn’t buy it. It was much easier to accept that he was stupid and just really good at finding a few topics to be knowledgable about and hold the jerk doctor’s attention.
Keeping my headphones in throughout the flight did seem to work, at first, keeping Luke and Cody from bothering me, but eventually, I noticed that Luke’s eyes kept dropping down and painting over my body. I wasn’t in anything too revealing, a pair of comfortable jogging pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, but I still felt like he was undressing me in his mind. My body heated up as I remembered what Mason had told me at the grocery store a few days ago, mixed with Luke’s behavior at the bachelor party. I’d planned to just write-off what Mason had told me, but ever since he’d said it, I had noticed that Luke’s behavior seemed to match what he said. It wasn’t as if it mattered, I wouldn’t give Luke the time of day if he was the king of England, but he was easily the best-looking man that had ever been attracted to me, and that kind of thing elicits results regardless of my true feelings.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my face mask. It wasn’t an incredibly long flight from Texas to Puerto Rico, but I could probably sleep through the rest of it and not have to deal with Luke’s wandering eyes. I cranked up my music to try and truly pretend as if I wasn’t in an asshole sandwich.
Before I put on my mask, I opened my phone to review the email that I had sent to my friend Jordan. She was still at my house when I had to leave for the plane, and I felt bad that I was leaving her alone. It worked out in an odd way, because I had free help to watch my house and feed my cat, but given what she was going through, I couldn’t help but feel like I was abandoning her. I wrote her a very detailed email about everything she needed to know to care for the house, and I even agreed to let her go have some initial meetings with a client of mine as an assistant for some money. She’d have to figure out something else a little more permanent if she decided to stay, but she still wasn’t sure what she was going to do.
Once I had suffered through enough anxiety about Jordan, I decided it was best I actually attempt to take a nap. I tried to stay focused on the music in my ears and drift off to sleep, but at least when I could see Luke and Cody I knew what they were doing, when I was blind to them, I was more unnerved. I was hoping to put them out of my mind, but eventually I made my peace with the fact that wasn’t going to happen. I slyly tapped my smart watch with the pre-programmed motion to pause my music and decided to listen in on what the two of them were talking about.
“It’s hard to think of you like that,” Cody said. “Whenever we go out now, you’re Mr. ‘Every woman is beautiful. Their flaws are their strength,’ blah, blah, blah.”
Surely, Cody couldn’t be talking about Luke; that didn’t even sound like him. All women were beautiful? He once called me a ‘Cheeseburger’ to my face!
“I’m telling you man, I was a little fucking shit. All to impress some chick who couldn’t even spell her own goddamn name. I was all caught up in being the jock with the head of the cheerleading squad girlfriend. I mean some of the stuff I did to her just because she wasn’t some twig barbie doll was absolutely horrible. It’s no wonder she hates me,” Luke said.
I didn’t know what to think. If he knew that the way he bullied me in high school was so awful, why was he still doing it? He teased me every chance he got.
“Are you sure it’s cool to talk about her with her sitting right here?” Cody asked.
“Oh, yeah, she’s out cold. Trust me. She used to hole up in the library back in high school and sometimes she would doze off. We…” Luke let out a deep, authentically sad sounding sigh. “We would draw on her face or take embarrassing pictures of her and she’d never wake up.”