In the Likely Event, page 8
“Thank you.” I took the chart and set it on my lap. “I just don’t know how to make myself get on a plane.”
Did he? When he’d left yesterday with the soldiers, had they immediately put him on the next flight to Fort Benning? Sure, I was scared of flying, but at least yesterday hadn’t been my only experience in the air.
“Then we’ll work through it,” she said as the phone next to my bed rang, startling us both.
I leaned but couldn’t quite reach, and the stitches in my side protested in the loudest way possible. Or maybe it was the broken ribs, or the spleen. Who knew? My entire body was pretty damn angry with me.
Serena rushed around the side of the bed and answered the phone, pushing her long hair out of the way. Even after twenty-four hours in the hospital, she still managed to look . . . perfect. If I hadn’t loved her so much, I would’ve loathed her out of sheer jealousy.
“Hello?” she answered, and a muffled voice replied. Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, thank God. I sent a message through the cruise lines, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get to you. When are you coming home?” Mom and Dad, she mouthed, listening to whatever they were saying. “She’s okay. They’re releasing her tomorrow. Ruptured spleen repaired, concussion, broken ribs, and bumps and bruises, but she’s past the worst of it. She’s right here if you want to—” Her brow furrowed.
I held out my empty hand.
“Are you serious?” Her face tensed. “Well, you can tell her that yourself.” She closed her eyes and swallowed, then handed me the phone.
Dread twisted my already nauseated stomach. “Hello?”
“Isa!” Dad answered. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry you’ve been through this.”
My eyes burned, but I swallowed back the tears. The same thing had happened when I’d found Serena next to my bed. It was like my emotions were simply too big for my body. “I’m okay,” I forced out.
“That’s what Serena says,” Mom added, and I could picture them sharing the handset, leaned in so they could both be a part of the conversation. “I’m so glad she’s there to take care of you for the next couple of days.”
“You’ll be back by then?” I held the phone between my right shoulder and ear and started flipping through my chart.
“Well.” Mom sighed. “Honey, you know how long we’ve waited to take this trip, so if you’re not in any life-or-limb danger, there’s not really a reason for us to come back, is there?”
I blinked, my hands going completely still.
Serena took her place on the side of my bed, watching me with an assessing gaze that I couldn’t bring myself to meet.
“I mean, we’ll see you at Christmas. That’s only four weeks away, and I’m sure you don’t want to miss out on any classes, which is all that us coming home would accomplish, really,” Mom continued.
“You’re not coming home?” I had to say it, had to make sure that’s what I’d actually heard them say. My parents were masters at words and every way they could be interpreted.
Serena reached for my hand and squeezed.
“If they’re releasing you tomorrow, then you must be on the mend,” Dad said, his tone changing to the matter-of-fact one he used at the office. “And I know you’ve been through a shock, Isa, but this will really be an opportunity for you to rise above the challenge and show your mettle.”
An opportunity?
“It wasn’t a shock,” I argued as my heart crumpled in on itself. “It was a plane crash. My plane crashed. I had to climb out the emergency exit onto the wing and then swim for shore while bleeding internally.” And still they weren’t coming home.
“And we’re so proud of you!” Mom sounded like I’d just earned a trophy. “Guess all those years on the swim team paid off.”
Not that they’d been at a single meet.
“We know you crashed, Isa,” Dad interjected. “Which is why you have full access to my credit card to book another flight back to Syracuse, of course. Don’t worry about a thing—we’ll cover it.”
Don’t worry about a thing except them being here. Got it.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t feel like you have to thank us. Of course we’d cover your travel expenses.” Dad chuckled. “And we can’t wait to see the dean’s list when we get back stateside.”
You have to be kidding me.
“Of course we’ll come home if you really, honestly need us to, Isabeau,” Mom said, her tone softening. “I’m sure we could get refunded for the rest of the trip, and of course there’s always next year if we want to finish it, right?”
“Don’t baby her, Rose. Serena already told us she’s being released, which means she’s fine. She’s an Astor. Aren’t you, Isa?” Dad questioned. “Astors do what needs to be done.”
They really expected me to come through this like everything else—with flying colors. What the hell was I supposed to do? Ask them to leave the only vacation Dad had taken in the last ten years where he hadn’t been in constant contact with his office?
I lifted my gaze to meet Serena’s and found her watching with compassion and a supportive smile.
“We’ll handle it together,” she whispered. “Just like we always do.”
I nodded and cleared my throat, banishing the knot that threatened to close it. “I’m fine. Serena will get me back to school.”
“Of course she will,” Dad said, pride filling his tone. “And we’ll see you at Christmas. And I know this has been horrible, but I’m glad we got to talk to you. We love you.”
“We love you!” Mom declared. “And we’ll get you something special at the next port.”
Tell me your love language is gifts without telling me . . .
“Sounds great. Love you guys too.”
Serena and I said our goodbyes, and she hung up the phone.
“I’m so sorry, Iz. I legitimately thought . . .” She sighed, plopping down in the armchair.
“No, you didn’t.” My voice softened. “Let’s not lie to each other.” The priorities in Mom and Dad’s life were Dad’s company, and themselves. Serena and I had always been hood ornaments, shined up and shown for status. But still, my lungs hurt when I drew my next breath.
“You have me.” She leaned in. “You always have me.”
“I know.” I clasped her hand for a moment and then took a shuddering breath. Crying about it wasn’t going to help, so I focused on the chart in my lap, flipping through the pages until I found the first documents. “There it is!”
Serena stood and leaned over the bed. “Are you sure that guy wasn’t a doctor? Because his handwriting is utter shit.”
“Nathaniel,” I whispered, my fingers skirting over the signature, but I couldn’t read the rest of it.
“How the hell did you get Nathaniel out of that chicken scratch?” She shook her head. “All I see is an N and . . . whatever that is.”
“Nate.” My lips curved into a wide grin, my first since waking up. “His friends call him Nate.” That was all I could remember, and probably all I’d ever know, but at least I had a name to put to the face of the man who’d saved my life.
Two months later, I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and stomped off the snow from my boots on the entry mat of my dorm. Colorado got snow, so it wasn’t like I was a stranger to the white stuff, but Syracuse got snow, especially in January.
It was up to my waist out there.
I walked to the mail room and spun the dial on my box as students chatted around me. My eyebrows rose at the telltale orange slip that meant I had a package to be picked up.
Mom and Dad weren’t exactly the care package type, and I’d seen them just last week before coming back to New York after break, so there was absolutely no chance it was from them. Serena, maybe?
I shut my mailbox, tossed one of the weekly credit card offers in the trash, and headed to the line at the window to pick up whatever had been sent to me. There were only two people ahead of me.
“Hey, Izzy!” Margo, my roommate, called out from the lobby with a thick southern accent, trudging toward me and leaving wet boot prints all over the muddy floor.
“Hey,” I answered. “How was psych?”
“Normal.” She shrugged as we moved forward in line and shook the snow out of her midnight-black hair. “We’re studying posttraumatic stress disorder.” A meaningful gaze cut my way. “Thought any more about maybe . . . discussing yours with a therapist?”
Nice and subtle.
“I don’t have PTSD. I’m scared of planes.” Which was why Serena and I had driven a rental car all the way from Colorado after break, despite my father telling me that I couldn’t afford to let the fear of flight hold me back.
“Resulting from a traumatic experience of a freaking plane crash,” she lectured, and the line moved again.
“I was scared of flying before the crash.”
“Slip?” the attendant asked, and I handed mine over. He disappeared into the mail room.
“I’m just saying that it really helped me after I lost my brother,” she said softly, and I couldn’t help but look over at her.
The thought of losing Serena was incomprehensible.
“So maybe it might help you to talk too,” she suggested. “I live with you. I know you’re not sleeping like you were before the crash. It couldn’t hurt, and from what I’m studying, the earlier you talk it out with a professional, the better.”
Maybe she was right. If anything, a therapist could tell me I was perfectly fine, and maybe suggest a few alternate forms of transportation. “I’ll look into it.”
“Good!” She hugged my side.
“Astor?” the attendant said, pushing a box across the counter. The brown box was a foot wide, about eighteen inches long, and maybe six inches tall if I had to guess.
“That’s me.” I reached for the clipboard he handed over and signed my name on the recipient line.
“Who’s it from?” Margo asked.
“Not sure.” It was surprisingly light as I picked it up off the counter and read the printed address label. “Transcontinental Airlines.” My chest tightened.
“Is it a giant check for your pain and suffering?”
“No clue.” What could the airline possibly have to send me? A pillow so I’d sleep better? A thousand travel vouchers I’d never bring myself to use?
We took the elevator to the third floor, and Margo used her key to open our door since my hands were full. Our furniture was simple—matching beds, desks, and mini dressers—but our decor was all Margo. Everything was hot pink and lime green, like the entire room had just stepped out of a Lilly Pulitzer ad.
I set the box down on my desk, then cut it open, taking out the letter on top of a dark-blue plastic bag.
Ms. Astor,
With the initial investigation into the unfortunate incident regarding flight 826 complete, we’re returning the personal belongings found in your seat’s floor storage. Though many paper items were water-logged and unsalvageable due to the plane’s submersion, we wanted to return what we could.
We apologize for the inconvenience of the time you’ve lost without your belongings,
Transcontinental Air
I snorted a laugh and read the last line out loud to Margo. “They’re sorry about the inconvenience about my lost luggage.”
“And the loss of your spleen?” She peeked over my shoulder.
“Hey, maybe it’s my purse!” I lifted the bag with zeal. It was probably ruined after spending weeks in the Missouri River, but I was kind of ruined, too, so we were a match. My thumbs pried apart the plastic closure, and the bag fell away, revealing an olive-green army backpack.
My heart stopped, and I had to take a deep breath to get it started again.
“That doesn’t look like your purse,” Margo said, a laugh in her voice.
“It’s not mine.” I set the backpack down on the empty portion of my desk. “It’s his.”
Her eyebrows launched upward as she moved to my side. “His as in . . . the dreamy guy who saved your life like some kind of river Baywatch Prince Charming?”
Obviously I’d spent a fair amount of time talking about Nate and too much time thinking about him: wondering how he was doing, wishing I had some way to contact him. He deserved so much more than my thanks, and besides, I’d said I’d ship books to him if he was allowed to have them in basic training.
If he was even still in basic training. I didn’t know enough about the army to even guess at how long stuff like that took.
“Yeah.” The backpack had obviously been washed, and it somehow looked exactly the same as when Nate had nearly pulled it out to switch seats with me. “He was sitting in my seat.”
“Open it.” She leaned in.
I unzipped the bag, and found a worn, soft, Saint Louis Blues hoodie and an iPod that had been protected by a ziplock bag. It turned on when I pushed the button through the plastic bag, “Panic! at the Disco” flashing across the screen. “I guess everything else must have been ruined.”
“I’m sorry it’s not your purse,” Margo said, turning back toward her side of our room.
“I’m not,” I whispered. How was it possible to feel so . . . connected to someone I’d only known for a couple of hours? It wasn’t even that he’d pulled me from the river, or that he’d carried me to an ambulance. He’d held my hand the entire way down and never looked away.
I shoved the sweatshirt back into the pack and then inhaled sharply. There, on the tag just beneath the handle on the inside of the pack, in permanent marker, was printed N. Phelan.
My grin stretched my cheeks. I knew his name. Wherever he was or whatever he was doing aside, I knew his name. I could find him, if only to return his bag.
Nathaniel Phelan.
CHAPTER NINE
IZZY
Kabul, Afghanistan
August 2021
“Sergeant Green,” I said the next day. My stack of manila folders was balanced precariously between my hands, cell phone on top, as I walked toward where Nate stood guard at the doorway of the conference room our team had taken over as office space in the embassy. Guess it was fitting to call him an entirely different name, considering he felt like a completely different person.
But he’d slipped those earbuds into my ears yesterday and played “Northern Downpour” to distract me when the helicopter took off. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? It was a glimpse of who we’d been in this dusty, bleak landscape of what we’d somehow become.
“Ms. Astor.” Nate nodded, his eyes trained straight ahead.
“Isa!” Ben Holt came flying through the lobby behind me, dodging the thickening crowd of Americans looking for assistance, and I half expected him to pull a cartoonish skid, but he managed to stop before barreling into me.
“Is something on fire?” I asked, adjusting the folders.
“Did you file your report with Senator Lauren when you got back last night?” Worry creased the area between his brows, and I sighed, already seeing where this was headed.
“Yep. I sent my initial impression from yesterday’s trip when we got back.” It had been late in the afternoon, and I’d been more than a little emotionally exhausted after clenching every muscle in my body during both flights, but work was work. “Kacey is still drafting the pretty version in there.” I nodded back toward the conference room.
“Shit,” he muttered, letting his head fall back for a second. “Do you always have to be so ahead of things?” There was a teasing glint in his brown eyes. “It would help the rest of us every once in a while.”
“Not ahead,” I reminded him as my cell phone buzzed with an incoming call. “Just on top of things. If I don’t get my notes turned in, then the junior aides can’t get theirs started.” My cell moved across the top folder with every buzzing ring.
Jeremy’s name and contact photo filled the screen.
Shit. It was his third call today.
“Let me help,” Ben said, reaching for the phone a half second too late. It fell from the stack of folders, crashing into the shiny floor, bouncing on impact.
Naturally, where Ben was too slow, Nate had the reflexes of a freaking cat, and he caught the device before it could impact again.
I was acutely aware of the rise of Nate’s body next to mine, and if I hadn’t been staring at his face, watching for any possible reaction, I would have missed the way his brow furrowed for a second when he saw the screen. “Just hit decline,” I said softly, my heart pounding at the thought that he’d answer it.
I wasn’t ready for the conversation Jeremy wanted, or the very different one I needed, and I sure as hell wasn’t ready for Nate to talk to him. Nope. No way was that happening.
Nate might not have known Jeremy, but Jeremy sure as hell knew who Nate was. Couldn’t blame Jeremy for hating him, though. I wasn’t keen on fighting a ghost for my fiancé’s attention either.
Except Nate wasn’t a ghost anymore. He was flesh and blood next to me, smelling like that spearmint gum he was obsessed with.
Which meant I knew exactly how he tasted right now.
“You sure?” Nate’s ice-blue eyes rose to meet mine, his finger hovering over the decline button.
“Absolutely.” I nodded, never as certain about anything in my life.
“Man, you’re fast,” Ben noted, leaning around my stack of folders to look at the phone. “Jeremy, huh?”
Nate looked at the phone for a second longer, and I knew he was memorizing every detail about Jeremy in that way he had, filing the information away for later. Then he tapped the decline button, and instead of putting my phone back on the stack in my arms, he slid it into the side pocket of my black slacks.
He didn’t touch me with his hands, but damn, did it feel like he had.
“How’s that going, anyway?” Ben asked like Nate wasn’t even there.
“It’s . . .” I swallowed, hard, and couldn’t help glancing over at Nate, but he’d already stepped back, taking his interminable position at the door. The files grew heavier every second we stood here. “It is what it is.”
