Page 69 of In Flight

“Yes. I do. I really... I’m more into you than I’ve ever been before. With anyone. And I think it scared me. Because I always pour my heart into everything, but I’ve been able to keep a little bit in reserve. Where it’s safe. But with you... with you, it wouldn’t be safe. It would take everything. And I kept thinking about what might happen if you... if it doesn’t work. But I’m not going to be that person. The person who runs and hides when things get scary. I’ve never been her, and I’m not going to start now. So if you still want... if you still want the same thing, I want it too.”

I bite back more words since they would only be more rambles. Everything inside me is jittering with fear and excitement both.

Because the truth is I have absolutely no idea what Isaac is going to do now.

“You want to be long-distance?” he finally asks. One of his hands is clenched around the armrest.

“Yes. I mean no. I don’t really want that, but it’s the best of all other options. I’m not going to move. Not right now anyway. In the future, I would probably be willing, but we’ll have to be in a different situation than this.”

“I never once asked you to move.” His eyes are running over my face like he’s desperately seeking answers to an unknown question.

“I know you didn’t. But your job. Your career is so important to you. Way more important than mine is to me. I don’t want you to miss out on anything you want.”

He’s breathing heavily. “And you think instead, I want you to miss out on the life in Savannah you want?”

“No! No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that at all.”

He shakes his head as he leans over to pull a large envelope out of his bag. His mood is strange. Tense. I can’t interpret it, so I have no idea what he’s about to say. “You still think you always have to fade into the background so other people can take the applause. You still believe that you’ll never be center stage. That you’re not worth going to the ends of the world for. That who you are—your radiant, beautiful spirit—doesn’t cast sunshine on everyone you meet. That it hasn’t transformed everything for me. That it doesn’t propel my plodding heart into the stratosphere.”

My eyes burn as I process what he’s saying. Everything he’s saying. I whimper and cover my mouth with one hand.

His low, hoarse voice softens into almost a whisper as he adds, “You still don’t understand that you’ve always made me fly.”

He hands me the envelope.

Tears plop onto the paper as I open it with trembling hands. I slide out an official-looking document.

I read the first paragraph. My eyes blur, so I wipe them before I read the paragraph again. Then I read the rest of the letter.

When what it says finally registers in my befuddled mind, I make a silly whining sound. “You... you... you... you got a transfer to the Savannah office?”

“I did.” He’s smiling now. It starts slow—barely there—but it gradually grows until his whole face is warm and tender and shining. “I understood why you thought we should end, and I tried to accept it. But I couldn’t. Icouldn’t. Maybe all the evidence lined up neatly to prove it was the right thing, but it didn’t feel right. It felt horribly, irrevocably wrong. So I finally realized that I couldn’t keep living like this. I needed to do whatever I could to give us a chance. I didn’t know if you would even want to, but I was willing to wait. Just for the chance.” He reaches over and takes my hand. Squeezes it. “For even the smallest chance of a life with you.”

So I end up sobbing again. I really wish I could stop. I manage to recover in just a minute because there are other things I desperately need to know. “But your job. Isaac, what about your job? You won’t have nearly the chances for advancement in Savannah, will you?”

“No. But it’s really okay. I’ll have a regular finance job in the office. And I will be able to move up to a certain level. And, in several years, maybe we’ll be more willing to move so I can take a position somewhere else, but if not, I really don’t care. You told me yourself that my job wasn’t making me happy, and you were right. I don’t want to have to keep traveling all the time. I don’t want everyone to dread the sight of me. I want to do something different, and this gives me the chance.”

“Really?” I reach out to clutch at his shirt.

“Yes, really.” Very gently he unclenches my fingers one by one. Then he surrounds them with both his big, warm hands. “River, I want this. For my career but—far more than that—for you. I want you. For as long as you’ll have me.”

“R-really?” I choke out again.

He shakes with quiet, affectionate laughter. “Really.”

“So you’re... you’re declaring eternal devotion?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “I’m not sure I would phrase it in exactly that way, but... but yes. I am.”

I’m giggling now. It’s spilling out of me. “How would you phrase it?”

He lets go of my hands with one of his and cups my face with the palm. “I would phrase it like this. I love you, River Kennedy. In the sky and on the ground. In Boston or Savannah or anywhere in between. Today and tomorrow and all the tomorrows I can see right now. I love you.”

With a burst of sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, I throw myself at him, hugging him and then kissing him and mumbling out over and over again, “I love you too.”

***

AFEW MINUTES LATER, the flight attendant has to come over to remind us to put on our seat belts. She adds she was worried that the love story playing out on her plane every weekend had taken a tragic turn, but she’s glad to see that we’ve worked it out in the end.

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