Page 11 of How to Walk Away

“I threw up,” I said, not quite catching his urgency.

“Margaret—the fuel—we have to get out. Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so.”

Chip was moving around unhooking and unbuckling and trying to work his door open like a hatch. His side didn’t seem to be crumpled like mine was. It was stuck for a second, so he had to brace against his seat to kick it, but then it popped easily out with a satisfyingka-chunkand fell open wide, squeaking at the hinges for a second as it bounced.

He climbed up and out, then reached back down for me. “Come on!”

I hadn’t even unbuckled yet. Everything seemed to be moving in slo-mo and time-lapse all at once. My hands didn’t seem like they even belonged to me. I watched them reach to unhook the shoulder strap, and that’s when I realized that it was already unhooked. Next, I tried for the lap belt, and discovered that, in ironic contrast, it was jammed.

It might not have mattered anyway. My side of the plane was crumpled. I was not exactlysittingin my seat anymore—more like sandwiched in between it and the dash.

I tried to wriggle out, but I was wedged in. I tried to move my legs, but they were pinned and didn’t budge.

Chip was up on the outside now, peering down through his window like a hatch. “Come on! Margaret! Now!”

“I can’t!” I said. “I’m stuck!”

He reached his arm down for me to grab. “I’ll pull you.”

“I can’t. My legs are pinned.”

Chip was silent for somewhere between one second and one hour—hard to tell. Then he said, “I’m going for help.”

For the first time, at the prospect of being alone, I felt afraid. “No! Don’t leave me!”

“This thing could blow at any minute!”

“I don’t want to die alone!”

“We need the fire department!”

“Call them on your cell phone!”

Chip’s voice was high and strange with panic. “I don’t know where it is!”

“Don’t go, Chip! Don’t go! Don’t go!” My voice, too, sounded odd—like someone else, someone I might not even like or feel sympathy for. Some screaming, hysterical, pathetic woman.

Chip was still leaving. “I have to get help. Just hold on. I’ll be back in two minutes.”

And then he was gone.

***

I WAS ALONE,in a crumpled plane, breathing air thick with jet fuel fumes. The air was so sour, and toxic, and corrosive, it felt like it was melting my lungs.

“Two minutes,” I whispered until the words turned into nonsense. “Two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes.”

Next, a crack of real thunder that rattled the instruments in the dash.

Then it started raining.

The drops sounded frantic against the metal shell of the plane. Chip’s door was still wide open, so the water sheeted straight in on my bare shoulders, cold and mean.

More than two minutes went by, but I can’t tell you how many. Ten? Thirty? A hundred?

I wondered if it the rain was a good thing or a bad thing. Would it prevent a fire—or make it worse? I just wanted the entire world to hold still until I was out and away and safe. It was dark in the ditch, like the rain had put out the lights, too. Soon I was shivering. The raindrops pinged like gravel hitting the metal shell of the plane. I could hear a ticking noise. I could hear my own breathing. I wondered how long before the ditch filled up with water and I died by drowning in a plane crash.

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