A/N: This chapter is heavily based on the first chapter of the novel so it sounds very similar but I promise as the story progresses it'll have a lot more differences and whatnot. Also I have no idea when I'll update because I procrastinate a lot, so I apologise in advance, but bear with me because I have big plans for it! Anyway, enjoy!
There are so many different ways it could've turned out.
Imagine if he hadn't forgotten the book. He wouldn't have had to run back into the house while his mum waited outside with the car running, the engine setting loose a light cloud of exhaust in the late day heat.
Or before that, even: imagine if he hadn't waited until the last minute to look for his suit, only to remember that the last time he wore it he snagged it on a loose nail and it had a big rip in one of the sleeves, his mum wouldn't have had to haul out the sewing machine and attempt to save the poor, wrinkled thing.
Or later: if he hadn't put his tickets at the very bottom of his bag and had to stop and search for them for five minutes, if he hadn't misplaced his tie twice, if there hadn't been so much traffic on the expressway to the airport. If they hadn't turned down the wrong road, or if his mum hadn't had to stop and look up the directions to the airport.
If his suitcase hadn't gotten stuck between some junk in the trunk and he had to spend longer trying to wedge it out.
If he had run just a little bit faster to the gate.
Though maybe it wouldn't have mattered anyway.
Perhaps the days collection of delays is beside the point, and if it hadn't have been one of those things, it would've just been something else: the weather over the Atlantic, rain in London, storm clouds that hovered for slightly too long before getting on with their day. Blaine isn't a big believer in the punctuality of the airline industry either. Who ever heard of a plane leaving on time anyhow?
He never missed a flight before in his life. Not once.
But when he finally reaches the gate this evening, it's to find the attendants sealing the door and shutting down the computers. The clock above them says 6:48, and just beyond the window, the plane sits like a hulking metal fortress; it's clear from the looks on the faces of those around him that nobody else is getting on that thing.
He's four minutes late, which doesn't seem like all that much when you think about it; it's a commercial break, the period between classes, the time it takes to cook a microwave chair. Four minutes is nothing. Every single day, in every single airport, there are people who make their flights at the very last moment, breathing hard as they stow their bags and then slumping into their seats with a sigh of relief as the plane launches itself skyward.
But not Blaine Anderson, who let his backpack slip from his hand as he stands at the window, watching the plane break away from the accordion-like ramp, its wings rotating as it heads towards the runway without him.
Across the ocean his father is making one last toast, and white-gloved hotel staff are polishing the silverware for tomorrow night's celebration. Behind her, the boy with ticket number 18C on the next flight to London is flipping through a Vogue magazine, pretty much oblivious to the world around him.
Blaine closes his eyes, for just a moment, and when she opens them again, the plane is gone.
Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?