Layla: Sorry, big day. You still there?
Milo: Yeah, boarding soon tho. You OK?
Layla: I’m great. Hey, I’ve decided to rate us 4 stars out of 5
Milo: No final star? Brutal
Layla: Always room for improvement
Layla: You can go to Hollywood and find me one
Milo: Deal
Layla: I’ll meet you on the Walk of Fame. PS: Fine, 4.5 stars. PPS: Rule 5 alert. PPPS: You still owe me a blimp!
Milo: The blimp was mine! And stuff the rules
Milo: Hey Lay, they’re calling my flight so I’ve gotta run. Bye again, Chicken Girl
Layla: Til we meet in the middle, jerkface. It’s sure been something
* * *
My stomach hasn’t stopped churning at the thought of leaving Durnan. It churned all the time Mum stood next to me in the check-in line, as I dragged myself through the gate for boarding, as I crammed my backpack into the overhead luggage compartment. Fine … fine! My stomach hasn’t stopped churning at the thought of leaving her.
Shaking my head as I suss out the movie selection on the flight, I tell myself to get over it. Harden up. Remember why I’m doing this.
Why am I doing this?
I pull down my tray table, and rip open the packet of chocolate-coated almonds Mum bought me for the trip — a substitute for no birthday cake. I pop one in my mouth and crunch through it. Better than grinding my teeth down to chalky dust.
Jesus. I’m going overseas for the first time ever. This is what I wanted. Want. I should be thinking of London and travel and adventures — adventures I can’t even begin to imagine. I shouldn’t be thinking of her. Not Layla. Not now.
Thousands of girls, she teased me. Yeah, right.
The woman to my right yawns, then takes my armrest hostage, her enormous fluffy jumper prickling against my bare arms.
Elbows pinned to my sides, I check my phone. There are no new messages. Just the final goodbye from Layla. I read it again. My stomach whips and I try to convince myself it’s due to the old man spluttering phlegm into his fist to my left and the twenty-three-hour flight in my ridiculously near future, but I don’t even believe my own bullshit any more. Okay, the old guy’s phlegm isn’t helping.
It’s like my brain doesn’t get that Layla and I were floating together in limbo.
Because we weren’t together. Not together-together. Not in a way that anyone else in Durnan will ever gossip about over bunches of kale at the Saturday farmers’ market. There’s no Layla loves Milo carving on the eucalyptus tree at the river. We never walked down the main street holding hands, or stuck our tongues down each other’s throats in the back row at the cinema before the lights even went down. We never won an award at the Year 12 formal telling us we were destined to be married forever.
As far as everyone in Durnan thinks, Layla and I mean nothing to each other.
Except I don’t give a stuff about what everyone in Durnan thinks.
I pop another chocolate-coated almond in my mouth and plug in my earphones, hoping I can drown her out with a song.
For the next five minutes and four seconds, my mind gets stuck on a loop of the moments in the past month leading up to this one.
Mum not letting me out of her sight for two days after I told her about London.
Dad ripping my map in half, then taping it back together the next day like nothing had happened.
Trent barrelling into my room every day to see if I was up for another marathon video-game session.
Then the six-hour drive this morning to Sydney International Airport, where the four of us took turns attempting small talk about what was waiting for me and what was to come for them.
At the gate, Mum cried and held me close when I told her I’d miss her, causing a scene in front of the other passengers like I knew she would. She begged me to message her every day so she knows I’ve not been stabbed and left to die in front of Westminster Abbey. After shouting her two coffees and a choc-chip muffin, I negotiated her down to three times a week with a face-to-face video chat thrown in once a fortnight — and told her to lay off watching the nightly news and gruesome detective shows.
Always one to keep up appearances, even in Sydney where he knows a whopping zero people, Dad told me he was proud of me for taking a risk, like this was his plan for me all along. He fidgeted with the locks on my backpack, telling me a crook could rip them right off and I should have bought the more expensive ones at the travel store, then he ruffled my hair before making a final dig while Mum was in the bathroom. Something about hoping I’d ‘find myself’ overseas like Paul Chamberlain’s daughter did before she studied medicine. Gritting my teeth, I let his words wash around me rather than absorbing them into my skin.
Trent gave me a quick hug and a few slaps on the back, a crooked smile and a filthy joke to finish before I walked through the gate: a quiet understanding that we’re all good.
‘Pray for me, bro,’ Trent muttered, gesturing to Mum and Dad bickering behind us.
I laughed out loud then, as I do now thinking about it.
The plane rumbles to life and the woman next to me gasps in surprise. I tug at my seatbelt to check it’s tight enough.
‘Sir, please put up your tray table.’ A beaming flight attendant leans towards me, almost choking me in a cloud of flowery perfume. ‘And turn off all electronic devices — we’re preparing for take-off.’
‘Sorry,’ I say, looking down at my phone. ‘One sec.’
Layla’s message is still on the screen: Til we meet in the middle, jerkface.
I type out a text — another goodbye, more personal jokes, a try-hard attempt to prove how much I’ll miss her, miss whatever the hell that was. Music pounds in my ears as my thumb lingers over the message, aching to link us one more time. But I just stare at the words. I stare at the words until the man beside me sneezes and I look up, catching a hint of blue fading into the grey clouds through the tiny window.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. ‘Sir, I said it’s time to put up your tray table and turn off your phone,’ the attendant says in her sugary voice. ‘Shall we make everyone on the plane wait? Or are you ready to join us for the flight to London?’
Cheeks reddening, my thumb trembles over the send button. But then my eye catches Layla’s words again: It’s sure been something
I swallow.
Then I delete my unfinished text, watching the letters disappear one by one until there’s nothing left but a flashing cursor. Everything that can be said has been said.
‘Yeah,’ I tell the attendant, turning off my phone so I can’t re-type the message. ‘I’m ready.’