I shake my head and twist my ring finger, the trick you taught me.
Jackson reaches into his backpack and pulls out a copy of last month’s Entertainment Weekly. “This’ll help you take your mind off of it.”
I go straight for the movie reviews, but in no time a flight attendant calls for our attention and delivers all sorts of safety instructions about where to find oxygen masks and how to locate exit doors. Jackson is reading his own magazine, which annoys me a little because he’s responsible for me on this flight. “Do you have this memorized?”
He answers me by quoting the flight attendant and mimicking her movements. “I’ve flown a few times,” Jackson says. “We’re going to be okay.”
Within minutes the plane is moving down the runway and it feels like driving down the highway. Except cars don’t pick up speed the way this planes does; cars never make me so nervous that I grab the door handle the way I’m gripping the armrest. Cars don’t shake violently like this. Cars definitely don’t lift at the front and take off into the air.
Jackson’s hand rests on top of mine, hesitantly. I don’t pull away, and his hand expands, holding mine. “How are you feeling?”
The plane swerves left and I’m certain this is it; we’re going to crash. I look out the window during this shift and it’s sad how this plane didn’t even get high enough to make the people in the freezing city below seem small, like ants in the snow. The plane finds its center. The captain announces our flight will be a little over five hours and that attendants will be around shortly with refreshments.
“That’s it?” I ask.
“That’s it,” Jackson says, releasing my hand.
My heart is still thumping. “Were you ever scared to fly?”
“It’s probably better for me to answer this after we land.”
“We’re already up in the air. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen,” I say.
“You’re not going to parachute out of here?” Jackson asks.
“I have no idea how to get out of this seatbelt. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I still get really nervous, and I’m not sure when that will stop,” he admits. “It’s weird, because my dad is a pilot. Or maybe that’s the reason. I’m always a little on edge. This may sound selfish or horrible, but the only time I felt sort of ready for any tragedy was when I was with Theo.”
“Was he brave on planes?”
I’m asking Jackson to tell me something about you I don’t know while I’m flying. What a day, huh?
“Theo was funny. He’s the reason I buy magazines for flights instead of watching a movie or something. He would go through all the features, stuff like ‘Who Wore It Best?’ and would owe himself a dollar every time he was able to guess the right actor or actress for the celebrity crossword puzzles.”
I might cry. This isn’t a bad cry. This isn’t one of my I-never-got-to-do-this-with-you cries, I swear. It’s one of my I-might-have-a-laugh-attack-if-I-keep-thinking-of-this cries, which are good. I’m hit with a realization: the Theo you were with him isn’t the Theo you were with me, and maybe that’s okay. I’ve been so desperate to know who you were becoming, I never stopped to think about how everything that made you my favorite person could’ve changed. Maybe you didn’t outgrow me; you just became someone else. It doesn’t make me want to know the new you any less, but it makes me feel a little less worthless.
“That’s really funny,” I say, picturing you hovering over crossword puzzles the same way you did jigsaw puzzles, except with a few bucks fanned out before you and rewarding-slash-deducting from yourself every time you got something right. “So being with Theo is the only time you felt safe?”
“Not safe. Comforted. Knowing I’d be able to hold Theo’s hand or hug him if anything happened, comforted me. I knew I wouldn’t be leaving Theo behind if I died alone.”
It’s screwed up, but it makes sense. “Then Theo drowned in front of you.” The words just pop out of my mouth. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and it shocks him too. He tenses up and tucks his hands between his legs, squeezing them tight, like he’s locking them away. Even as we’re on our way to celebrate how you lived and to visit the beach where you died, we haven’t crossed this line yet.
You left us alone. Your death made us each a piece in this awkward puzzle that doesn’t completely come together, but it’s enough to make out the image: two boys in love with someone who is never coming back.
I shouldn’t have brought this up. It was a shitty thing to say to Jackson. He has to live with how he wasn’t able to save you. I was lucky enough to be spared that tragedy.
We’re pretty quiet for the next five hours. I even get a couple of brief naps in. When the plane slows and dips down, I jerk upright, tensing. Then the pilot announces we’ve begun our descent and to make sure our seatbelts are on. Jackson side-eyes me and laughs.