Hey guys! Sorry for the late update. I've finished my classes this week, and now I've the entire summer to write :p
Anyway, enjoy! And as always, your words are always appreciated.
Chapter 2
"I can help the next person in line?" Rey rears attention toward the timid voice and tugs her luggage from behind, the check-in desk hidden behind only a few abled bodies. Reaching the front in what she assumed—ten minutes—Rey finds her patience disappearing. An obvious newly-recruit.
She tilts her head aside, annoyed, with a thrumming tap of her heel as the agent verifies her information. She couldn't help with the rolling of her eyes as his keystrokes looked like they went about three words per lifetime.
"Alright Miss, place your luggage on the scale." He intrudes with a wavering shill to his voice, his glasses glare in the sharp lighting of the airport. "Are you familiar with our policies?" The agent politely asks as he hands her photo-ID back with a shaky hand.
"Policies?"
"Well you're allowed one cabin bag and personal companion. Does your luggage weigh twenty-three kilograms?"
"I hope so." She murmurs with a hint of unease ingrained in her movements. Her luggage is laid atop the metallic scale and the beeping numbers held her eyes firm.
2 3.9 KG
"Looks like you're over the—"
"Thanks." Her voice drips with sarcasm as she unzips her cargo, "wouldn't have the slightest clue what those numbers mean."
The agent is silent and compliant. It was probably his first day and she was making it a living hell for him.
Damn it Rey.
She was one of those customers.
"You know what? I've been such an asshole to you. What's your name?"
The airline agent pauses, obviously, a stuttering mess and a conglomeration of what-do-I-do-next and she's-too-beautiful-to-be-asking-my-name. "Uh… Greg, Miss."
"You've been great help Greg. Would you take this off my hands?"
It is a pink and white self-help book. Wonders of online dating and even more; Love in 90 Days: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Own True Love. Hopefully Greg doesn't mind Kirschner, a lovely woman and an amazing poet she is. There's a reason why travelling was on Rey's schedule today, and she couldn't thank her anymore for taking the "home" out of her homebody.
She's a freebody now.
Fifteen minutes and I'll be off to a nine hour flight.
Then I'm going to see him.
Finally.
Her heart knocks with intention and her stomach begins to whirl.
"Uh...thanks." The desk attendant Greg grabs the book with an unsure hand and sets it aside the scale. "You're still half a kilo from meeting the weight limit, Miss."
Rey sighs brazenly, impatience lingering on her features. "What do you mean? It's not enough?" The traveler calms down as she realizes how she'd been acting immature and snobbish. Maybe it was the anxiety that made her feel so irritable?
"Right. Right. Sorry." She unzips the black suitcase and snakes out a generic tee shirt (it wasn't worth 115 pounds) and hopes that does just about everything. "Good?" She waits as the numbers readjust themselves.
He nods and places the cabin sticker on her luggage. She nods at the attendant with confirmation and grabs the necessaries, eager that he reads the book at some point in his life.
….
The moment she enters her plane terminal, she takes a long first whiff of the new land and it smells like a mixture of coffee and junk foods, with a hint of machinery fuel.
"Well, America. Here I am." She heaves the anxiety out of her chest and gives O'Hare a good look-around.
Through the stainless windows that constructed the ceiling, she could see the rustic colors of dusk swimming in the sky. American flags were strewn proud fully along the rafters along with other nations. People rush along, alone or tightly-knit families and seek to find bus shelters and cabs.
The passengers arriving with her from her flight looked exhausted, bloodshot and awaiting a bed to crawl into. But not her—oh not her. She had a date to make.
Her cell displays the same seasonal lock screen throughout the entire flight and yet… Rey checks it again. No messages. She waits impatiently for her luggage to roll around the metallic carousel, her heart thumping painfully again. The need of having to find it as soon as possible has her shot to pieces.
Rey, trembling on her toes, has her device on hand to reply as soon as he decides to relay a message. She said she'd be in the States by nine. Was he confused? Why wasn't he saying anything?
Bzzzz Bzzzz
Rey's chest jumps momentarily and unlocks her phone within a split second. It's Kylo.
Finally.
"Hey sweetheart. Sorry for the late reply!"
Each message block was sent individually and she curls her lips. He double-messages with no shame. She waits a bit before replying, even though she's on a desperate time crunch to meet him.
"It's alright :)." Rey looks around her immediate zone and dumbs her smile down, no one needs to know her business. "I'm here. Where do I go now? I'm lost."
She waits about three minutes for a reply. What was taking him so long?
"Yeah…about that."
Her heart jumps again. Not the kind that happens after love at first sight, but the kind when your boss asks to talk with you; the kind where you know bad news is coming your way.
"Yeah?" She texts immediately. The screen blares in her eyes, feeling as though dark under-circles were dissolving her concealer.
"…"
Hurry the fuck up and tell me, Rey purses her lips all the meanwhile. The anxiety forces the woman to find a nearby bench and rest, she couldn't balance an exhausted body and mind at the same time. Not like this.
"I can't make that date tonight."
She forces herself to breathe while reading that sentence repeatedly. "What? Why? I just got off the airplane?"
"Sorry."
"Sorry? Can't we go tomorrow if tonight doesn't work? Maybe another day?" Rey's hazel eyes are unblinking and she waits a minute before locking her phone again. Something inside loses its weight, akin to the feeling of watching her own dignity fly away and disappear.
She found herself erasing the next sentence faster than she can text it.
She opens the conversation again.
Read 9:53 pm.
Rey can't believe her eyes—he left her just like that, with a few and simple exchange of words. An apology sure, but no explanations or further reason. All to be left in the lurch. Rey's ponytail is in disarray against the metal ridges of the bench, as she rests her head against the base of her palm. Her eyelids are droopy as she stares at her phone.
She doesn't know what to think.
Her makeup feels as though it was melting under the light, and she'd fall asleep if it weren't for the fact that she didn't have a home to sleep in. Or even less—an actual bed.
She was hoping to sleep in his—
Never mind that now.
People don't question the lone woman as they stroll by with their gravelling suitcases, all chatting about on their phones. They don't understand her situation. The turmoil she's going through, right now.
The harsh fluorescent lighting doesn't do any favors for Rey, generating an unnecessary headache.
Time passes quickly for Rey as she rolls her around on the bench, thinking about what she else could have said. It's uncomfortable, but right now, this is the lesser evil. Maybe he was playing a joke on her and was going to surprise her here? At the airport? If that were the case, he'd have come long ago and dare she say not two hours late.
It's almost midnight now.
The O'Hare's suspended clock enraptures her attention. The long needle ticks for every lasting minute and she continues to feel pain burning in her chest. In her wasted smiles. In her useless hopes.
Is this man even real?
She feels like a lightyear away from home, and now that she used most of her savings, there's no way to get back.
