Page 93 of Open for Negotiation
“What if I’m not sure about mine?”
“Then you have to decide for yourself. Are you ready to move on for yourself and whomever you’re leaving? Or do you still have the unanswered question… what if?”
His answer, his advice, weighs heavy in my heart when his boarding section is called and he rises slowly to his feet.
“Excuse me,” I stop him before he leaves. “Thank you for sharing with me.”
“Sometimes, you just need to know that what you’re feeling isn’t abnormal.” He gives me a sweet wink and heads over to board his flight.
I sit by the window at my gate for what feels like forever, watching flights land and take off, wondering where they are going or coming from. Wondering if any if the passengers have a hole in their chest the way I do.
If they wondered the entire time they waited here, in the airport, if they were making a huge mistake.
Max
I leave my car right in the front at drop-off, not giving a fuck if it’s towed or not. We can handle that later if we have to.
The airport is busy as I run to the terminal that houses the check-in counter for the only airline with flights to Nashville leaving this morning. I have to dip, duck, and dodge travelers like we are playing Frogger and I’m the doomed amphibian trying to cross the street.
I, very, very impatiently wait in the line to buy a ticket for her flight because I know damn well, I won’t be able to get through security without one.
“Hi, how can I help you?” The young lady at the desk asks with a smile that I know has to be fake. Working in customer service can’t make anyone this chipper.
“Hello, I need one ticket for Flight 5963 to Nashville. Any class, any seat, I don’t have any baggage to check.” I pull my ID and credit card from my wallet.
She pauses her clickety clacking on the keyboard to eye me suspiciously. “You’re traveling without bags? Not even a carry-on? And you don’t care which class I put you in? That’s a drastic price—”
“Look,” I eye her nametag, “Brooke, I’m trying to get back to that gate to stop the woman I love from getting on that plane, and if I am correct, it takes off very, very soon. If I don’t get through this line and through security soon, I’m going to miss it, miss her. I know it’s not your problem, but I have to get to her. I have to.”
She takes a moment to consider my words before she takes my credit card from me, charging me for a first-class seat, and sliding my boarding pass to me.
“Good luck, sir. Go get her.”
“Thank you, Brooke.” I take my ticket and boarding pass, running through the Atlanta airport like I’ve lost my damn mind toward security.
As if the airport gods decided to shit all over me today, I was sent through the X-ray machine twice, manually checked with the wand, and patted down before they’d actually let me through to board the inner airport train to get to Concourse C where, hopefully, Scarlett would still be waiting on her flight.
***
I’ve never seen this airport so crowded. There are people wall-to-wall, scurrying through the terminals at a snail’s pace. I check my watch again and the minutes are counting down until she’ll be boarding or worse, taking off, before I can get to her.
Panic and anxiety set in right before something kind of crazy and genius pops into my head.
I frantically look around for the customer service counter in this concourse or some kind of phone or intercom hanging on the wall.
It takes me four gates down, nearly tripping over multiple strollers and really pissing off a very upset woman on the phone before I find a bright red phone hanging on the wall, and to my absolute delight, there is a black button that reads “Intercom.”
