Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
“What else is new? No way. You’ll find out soon enough.”
I made sure to shower that night because I wouldn’t have the chance to do it in the morning. Under the water, my heart was palpitating, filled with anxiety over tomorrow. It had been too long since I had faced my fears on Jake’s terms and tested my nerves. Not to mention, I had an ominous feeling about this one.
When I got back to my room, low and behold, there was an origami bat greeting me on the nightstand. He would always wait for me to take a shower, so he could sneak one into my room.
When I opened it and saw what it said, my heart nearly skipped a beat:
For our last stint,
I will give you a hint.
It’s a windy city…
Where Jake was itty bitty.
He was taking me home to Chicago.
***
Maybe by some miracle there would be a terror threat or a medical emergency, and this spaceship would stay on the ground. Actually, I was probably going to become the medical emergency. That was my last hope because the passengers had boarded, and the doors to the Boeing 737 were now closed, trapping us all inside.
Officially out of control of my life. Why did I let him do this to me?
Because I would do anything he asked me to.
“Hold my hand, Nina. Squeeze it as tight as you need to. Breathe,” he said.
The smell of the engines turning on reminded me of burning cheese.
With the way I was breathing in and out and the way Jake was squeezing my hand, row nine, seats E and F, looked more like a labor and delivery area.
Even the flight attendants were seated now in those strange side seats, belted and useless. Their fate was in the same hands, those of a man who might have just had a couple of whiskeys in the airport lounge.
Forget the elevator, this was the single most terrifying moment of my life. Flying was at the very top of the list of things that scared me. As queen of the “what ifs,” I created too many possible scenarios of what could go wrong and couldn’t even wrap my head around them all.
As the jet taxied toward the runway, my breathing had gotten completely out of control, and my entire body shook involuntarily. How was this thing going to possibly lift off the ground and stay up in the air? I knew nothing about the mechanics of the situation, and even if properly explained, it likely would still not seem logical.
Rosary beads in hand, the old lady across the aisle made the sign of the cross. She certainly wasn’t helping my situation in the least bit.
Jake could see he was losing me fast. I was starting to hyperventilate. He reached into his trusty black backpack of doom and took out a brown paper bag. “Breathe into this.”
It wasn’t helping, because I had myself convinced I couldn’t breathe and panicked, which fed the hyperventilation.
As the plane picked up speed, the concern in his eyes grew when my breathing became shallow.
The last thing I remembered before we were completely airborne was Jake bending down to tie his shoes. How bizarre, I thought, for him to do such a thing when I am on the verge of collapse. I soon realized that he wasn’t tying his shoes.
He was untying mine.
Near hyperventilation morphed into uncontrollable and hysterical laughter, as he stayed bent down attacking my feet in the worst foot tickle ambush of my life.
I fidgeted in my chair and kicked him repeatedly, crying tears of laughter, and so was he.
“Jake…stop!”
“Stop.”
“Stop.”
“Stop.”
“Stop” was all I could manage to say in between my cackling and hitting him. It was not an exaggeration to say that the entire plane was looking at us like we were nuts.
By the time he finally did stop, we were at cruising altitude, and my nerves calmed down after realizing that we had not crashed upon takeoff. His tickles had distracted me so much that it was impossible to focus on anything else.
My breathing was still heavy, but I was no longer close to hyperventilating. I finally turned to him worn out. “Why on Earth would you do that to me?”
“I had no choice. There are only so many things I can do from this seat to get your mind off your fear. You can only handle one thing at a time. I figured if I made you totally lose it that way, you couldn’t possibly become scared enough to panic.” He could see I was starting to crack a smile and returned it. “It worked…didn’t it?”
“I guess. But don’t ever do that again to me.”
He flashed a wicked grin. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to save you from yourself.”
A few minutes later, my breathing had calmed down significantly, and I gave in to the fact that I had no choice but to try to relax.