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LEAVE IT TO ELIZABETH to not let me know I was accepted by my new husband until late the night before my flight. I’d been so worried I was heading to Washington without anything or anyone, I hadn’t slept or eaten much while I waited to find out.
Claiming my seat by the window in the airplane, I stared out at the limited view. How could she have waited? She’d said she was so busy, she’d almost missed the email, but still. She should’ve set it up through my email. That didn’t matter. She got me the message and there I was, on the plane, to head toward him.
Thankfully, he’d accepted me. What if he hadn’t? That wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself that since I’d left the church. Throughout my life, I doubted it would be the last.
I had never left Arkansas. We even lived close to the state line of Oklahoma, and I had never left. I wasn’t the adventurous type.
Elizabeth was.
I had never been on a plane either. I had no one to notice that my fingers were white as they dug into the armrests. I couldn’t report to anyone who would care that the lurch as the plane pulled forward tugged on my insides and ached in the back of my head. I stared out the window as we sped up and up and up. We lifted from the ground, and I was weightless, and yet I wasn’t.
As Bentonville grew smaller beneath me, I could’ve been looking at Google maps of the state. Would Washington have trees and grass? The ones of my home state disappeared into a patchwork quilt of grass and plains as we rose above.
I wouldn’t miss Larry, but I would miss Arkansas.
The chatter from the other people in the airplane didn’t bother me. I couldn’t stop staring as my state disappeared. We broke through the clouds and suddenly nothing was under me but white. I leaned back, the flight would be extremely long, and thankfully, Elizabeth had got me one without a layover. I would be arriving in Tacoma sometime that afternoon. Washington was two hours behind my time, so I wouldn’t lose too much daylight.
I clenched my hands on my camera case as it sat on my lap. What was I doing?
~~~
THE SEATBELT LIGHTING dinged on, not that I had taken mine off, and people started to shuffle their items into place as we landed.
The lurch as the plane connected with the ground was not my idea of a smooth landing, but according to the pilot, who spoke over the loudspeaker, it was a terrific landing.
Although, he could’ve just been patting himself on the back that we hadn’t died.
Everything I had looked up about Washington and Seattle had been based around lots of rain, ocean, and cold. I was from Arkansas, cold did not sit well with me.
A fun fact I’d learned, and had to text to Liz, was that Snoqualmie wasn’t too far from where the Twilight series was supposed to be based. I wondered if I could get over there to see Forks and catch a glimpse of Edward. The romanticism around the sparkly vampire had always captivated Elizabeth and me. We’d always longed for that ever-after love which was supposed to surpass anything.
I was unfortunately extremely realistic. That was one of my many flaws.
Expecting anything like an eternal love from Jeremy just wasn’t smart. Sure, he was my husband now. According to Elizabeth, it was a six-month trial period. We were married for all intents and purposes. If we were together for that length of time, and we decided not to stay together, we would get our money back.
Elizabeth never mentioned the amount of money. Hopefully it wasn’t more than fifty bucks. That way I could get it back for her, if I fell in love with him. Fifty dollars was easy to come up with. Anything more than that, and I’m not sure I would be able to.
I still hadn’t turned on my phone. I didn’t want anyone to know where I was going. Quite honestly, I didn’t want anyone to take the opportunity to dissuade me from my path I’d chosen.
Grabbing my two carryon bags, I followed the crowd off the plane. The nerves in my hands and along my shoulders tingled. I was so anxious, but I couldn’t help thinking that something good was going to happen.
When I got off the plane, would I need to get a cab, or rent a car or something?
The signs leading towards the front were lit with white letters on a black background. I followed the crowd heading toward luggage claim and got on the escalators. As the escalator descended to the next level, a crowd of people waited, splitting off to walk with those who stepped off the moving stairs. A few passengers moved off on their own to the carousel. That would be me.
I shifted my larger carryon to my other shoulder and hefted my bag and tripod up so I could adjust the weight better. Glancing up, I noticed a man off to the side. His broad shoulders and trim hips stood out among men who didn’t know how to stand with confidence, and women who looked past him and then did a double-take to look again.
When I gathered the wherewithal to look away from the strength of his jaw and the noble angles of his cheekbones, I spotted a sign above his head with red letters that said Reeves.
Wait. The man wearing the dark brown cowboy hat over black hair and piercing brown eyes was the man I’d married? He was too good-looking for me. What if he saw me and ran?
I hadn’t told him who I was. He didn’t know it was me. I wasn’t sure if Elizabeth had put my picture on that website. At the same time, he could still turn and run. I could still pretend like it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t me and keep walking. I could do it before he did. I could reject him before he refused me.
Wait. That wasn’t the normal “me” mindset. The journey I was on had to lead me away from that self-defeatist ideal I’d lived with under my parents. I couldn’t make the decision to leave that behind and then not change myself.
He wouldn’t reject me. If I wanted to, I could, but he was there with a sign. He hadn’t turned me down. The escalator got lower and lower. It wasn’t like it would be the first time I had left a man almost literally at the altar. I could keep walking.
Then our eyes met, and I knew deep down that there was nothing in me that could keep me from walking to him.
Hopefully my instincts were smarter than my mind.
