Page 3 of The Holiday Disaster

“Oh.” He paused and hung his head to look at his lap where he was fiddling with his thumbs. “I thought…”

An announcement began blaring on the plane, and I strained my ears to hear his words, but he never continued. “You thought what?” I prompted. We were having an actual conversation for the first time, and I wasn’t ready for it to end so soon.

“It’s nothing,” he replied, but I wasn’t taking that. I bumped him with my shoulder hoping that he would continue. He hesitated once more, his shoulders lifting slightly in a sigh before turning to face me. “I thought you hated me and wanted nothing to do with me.”

“What? How could you think that? I—”

“Please fasten your seatbelts. We’ll be taking off soon,” the flight attendant interrupted. Her radiant white smile pointed at me would have attracted me in any other scenario, but right now, I could only grit my teeth and quickly do what she’d asked so that she would leave and I could continue my conversation.

I faced Ethan again, wanting to dispel the misunderstanding he had about me, but whatever progress I’d made with him before we’d been interrupted had disappeared.

Ethan pulled a book from his backpack before pushing it back underneath his seat, then opened the book in an obvious sign that he was finished talking and didn’t want to be bothered anymore.

Even as kids, he never had a problem with telling me no or straight up ignoring me. It was refreshing since I was always surrounded by those who were eager to get me to like them. And that only drove my desire of winning him over even more.

Interrupting him now would only make his already low impression of me even worse, and I didn’t want that. Now that I knew there was some miscommunication between us, I had the whole winter break back at home to get through to him. I’d let him run away for now, but I was nowhere near done trying to break through his walls.

I sighed and turned to look out the window. The plane was moving down the runway, getting ready to take off. It, at least, was making some progress, unlike my relationship with Ethan.

As we entered the skies, my mind wandered back to how his firm body felt so good against mine and how amazing it would feel to be wrapped around him in bed. That would never happen, of course. I’d probably never be lucky enough to hold him again since he could barely stand the sight of me. But one could dream…

THREE

ETHAN

I was thanking my lucky stars when the flight attendant interrupted whatever Kingsley was about to say. I wasn’t ready to hear how much he disliked me or how annoyed he was that he had to sit beside his best friend’s nerdy younger brother. My luck was working with me instead of against me for once.

Flipping the book open, I tried to focus on the words in front of me. I usually fell into the world of stories, but the heat radiating off Kingsley made concentrating an almost impossible task. It was a strange feeling, seeing the same words over and over again but not comprehending a single thing.

It didn’t help that I couldfeelhis gaze on me every so often. My skin prickled under his eyes, and I was tempted to shout for him to stop antagonizing me with his stares. However tempting yelling at him sounded, though, I wasn’t one to cause a scene in public.

So instead, I redoubled my efforts in my book and was eventually immersed in the comforting story about the library cat. The story was so soothing, in fact, that my eyes were closing before I knew it, and my head landed on something firm as I drifted into sleep.

A voice over the PA system had me popping my eyes open again. The flight attendant was in the middle of making an announcement, but the words sounded jumbled to my foggy brain. My senses tuned into a foreign sensation that I couldn’t quite make out.

My head rested against something solid while a heavy object leaned against the top of my head. As my rationale slowly returned to me, I realized what—or should I say—whoit was.

I froze in place, careful not to wake up Kingsley who was using my head as his pillow, although I couldn’t say anything since I apparently had been sleeping on his shoulder. Without moving, I glanced at the aforementioned shoulder to find a tiny wet spot on the sleeve of his white t-shirt.

Was that drool?

That thought drove me into a flurry of movements as I tried to wipe at the spot without much success. I flapped my hand back and forth, trying to use it as a fan to speed up the drying process. I would die of embarrassment if Kingsley woke to find that he’d been slobbered on. I could only hope that any evidence dried before that could happen.

What I didn’t expect was the plane suddenly jolting, causing me to jump in my seat and bang into the head that had been leaning against mine.

“Hmm?” Kingsley grumbled, his voice full of sleep. “What’s going on?” He rubbed the spot on the side of his head that I’d bumped into before turning to look around the aircraft cabin.

All the lights on the plane had turned on along with the seatbelt sign. The PA system made beeping sounds, signaling another announcement coming along. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We will be making an emergency landing in Wintertown. The landing might be a little rough due to the turbulence. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”

Murmurs rose within the cabin as the other passengers questioned what was happening. I listened as well, hoping to get answers before I started hyperventilating. Those chatters quickly evolved to screams as more turbulence rocked the plane.

Of course this would happen on one of my flights.Curse my luck!I was never a nervous flier, but I did often consider that maybe I would be that one in the million, and it would be the plane thatIwas on that would go down.

Thoughts of the plane crashing to the ground and going up in flames had all the blood draining from my face. The shouts that had surrounded me now buzzed in my ear as a distant drone. Somewhere along the way, I must have forgotten how to breathe if the suffocation I now felt was anything to go by, but no matter how much I flapped my mouth open and closed, my body refused to suck in more precious air.

I buckled over, my head slung in between my legs. I hoped that if I couldn’t see the chaos ensuing around me, I could reclaim my calm. Instead, the darkness that surrounded me only caused me to fall further down the abyss of terror.

This was it. The end of Ethan Wang and all the other hundred or so passengers. At least I could take comfort in the fact that I wouldn’t be going down alone.

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