Some Like it Hexed, page 14
It was their beliefs I didn’t love. All three of them were impossibly superstitious, and whenever I was around, I always felt like there was some big secret I was missing out on, some sort of major thing I just didn’t know.
Which was crazy. They were my family, and I knew everything there was to know about them all.
But still. My intuition always went haywire whenever I was in that house, the same one Mom had grown up in after her father had abandoned them.
The same one I’d grown up in.
Less than twenty-four hours after my final fight with Kenneth, I was in an Uber and on my way to the airport.
And stuck in traffic.
“Are you sure there are no backroads you can take to get us there faster?” I asked the driver, a stout young man with fire engine red hair, the same color as mine. He had a South Boston accent, and drove with his golfing hat on backwards.
“No, lady, sorry,” the guy shrugged. “Traffic’s real bad out today, huh?”
“Sure is,” I sighed, and looked at my watch for the fifth time in as many minutes.
I had half an hour before the gates closed, I missed my flight, and I was stuck in Boston for… who knew how long. I just needed to get out, to go home and see my family and make some sort of attempt to reconnect with life itself. Figure out my next act.
Without Kenneth.
The traffic didn’t improve, even by a smidgeon. I was late to the airport, and by the time I made it through security, I was sweaty and anxious as I sprinted through the terminal.
Just as I got up to my gate, I saw those big white doors start to close.
“No, wait!” I screamed, so loudly I turned a plethora of heads. The attendant either didn’t hear me or didn’t care, because those doors closed all the same.
“I… have… a ticket… for this flight,” I gasped at the cranky old flight attendant manning the door. “I need to get on.”
She looked up, appraised me with dark hazel eyes, and then shook her head with absolutely no remorse.
“Sorry,” she shrugged. “Can’t help ya. Get here earlier next time, like everyone else.”
“No, look, you don’t understand,” I wailed. I could already feel it all coming down on top of me, revving up for a massive breakdown. The cheating, the divorce, the move, the pre-mid-life crisis I was about to have. “I’m getting a divorce, okay? Because my cheating ex-husband has some grand idea that he’s going to go live a story, whatever that means. But he’s not just living a story. Oh, no. He is living it with someone else. The man cheated on me and then had the gall to blame it on this insane need to ‘live my own story.’ What does that even mean? Do you know? Because I don’t. I just… don’t. So anyways, now I’m here, trying to get on this flight to go home and see my Mom and my Grams—who I haven’t seen since Christmas, mind you. I am a terrible daughter, I know, save it. My ex used to tell me that all the time. He also said I was a terrible spouse, but he’s the one who cheated, so you tell me who got the last word there, okay? All I’m really saying is that I need, and I mean need, to get on this flight and get the hell out of this city before the whole thing falls down and suffocates me. So is that too much to ask, for you to open those doors and let me get on my flight so I don’t suffocate?”
Yeah.
It wasn’t until after I’d finished, and felt that sort of out of breath panic a person feels after they’ve acted like a total idiot, that I realized I’d pretty much just dumped my entire life story on a total stranger.
And an entire airport terminal.
The stewardess, though, looked wholly unimpressed and unamused with my story. She just shook her head and sighed.
“Go back to customer service and they’ll get you on the next flight,” she informed me. “Have a good day.”
She glanced back down at whatever stupid paper was on her desk, and that was when I lost it.
“Listen to me!” I hissed, crouching down so I could meet her eyes head on. “You need to let me on that flight. Now.”
All of a sudden, the woman’s hazel eyes went blank, kind of like a person’s does in an overacted TV scene where they’re supposed to be hypnotized. She stared at me, and this scary smile twitched the corner of her lips, but didn’t go all the way, and sure as hell didn’t meet her eyes.
“Okay, you can get on this flight,” she said robotically, and then went to open the doors as if she was a puppet on a string.
I didn’t even have time to question the strange oddity. I just nodded my thanks and rushed past her to get on that plane.
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About the Author
Melinda Chase is an author of Paranormal Women’s Fiction.
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Over forty years young, Melinda loves writing tales that prove life—romance—and ‘happily-ever-afters’—do exist beyond your twenties!
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Her debut Series, Midlife Mayhem is a snarky, hilarious, romantic adventure, sure to please fans of traditional paranormal romance and cozy paranormal mysteries!
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Melinda Chase, Some Like it Hexed
