Chapter 15
Maggie
Shockingly, Maggie woke up clear-headed. Tired, sure, but not drowning in the pounding regret that usually followed a night like last night. Maybe because after the piano bar she’d stuck mostly to water, letting Pete and Danica take over the shots.
Now, standing on the tarmac with the rotor blades whipping the air, Maggie was wide awake and very aware that she might die. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “This thing looks like it’s made out of Legos.”
“Technically you mean LEGO bricks.” Gwen was standing silently beside her, observing the helicopter with a sense of calm boredom, like it was her most common mode of transportation.
“No, I mean fucking Legos, Gwen.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “This is really the pedantic hill you want to die on?”
“Arlo and Jude would agree with me,” Gwen said with a shrug.
Beside her, Danica was pale, one hand pressed to her stomach. “I already feel motion sick and we haven’t even lifted off.”
Pete threw an arm around Danica’s shoulder, grinning like she’d just won the lottery. “Baby, it’s going to be epic. I’ve been waiting for this all week.”
Danica groaned. “That’s not reassuring.”
Izzy adjusted her oversized sunglasses and smirked. “We’ll live. Probably.”
Kiera gave her a look, then squeezed Danica’s arm. “It’ll be fine. It’s short. And if you puke, at least we’ll have a good story.”
Maggie was clenching her jaw so tight it hurt. The helicopter gleamed under the Nevada sun, its windows curved like a toy capsule, the blades thrumming loud enough to rattle her teeth. “People weren’t meant to fly in things this small,” she said, mostly to herself.
“Don’t worry,” Gwen said. “It’s like an Uber with wings.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Maggie shot back, but her voice cracked on the last word.
The pilot, cheerful in mirrored aviators, waved them toward the open door. “All right, folks! Adventure of a lifetime. Buckle in and grab your headsets.”
Danica whimpered. Maggie considered bolting. Pete, naturally, bounded forward like a kid at Disneyland.
And somehow, caught between terror and the ridiculousness of her friends, Maggie climbed in after her, Gwen tight behind her.
The cabin was smaller than Maggie expected, all narrow seats and Plexiglas curves. The pilot’s voice crackled through the headset — cheery, like he didn’t realize he was about to fling seven women to their deaths.
Maggie buckled herself in, knuckles white on the straps.
Danica sat directly across, eyes squeezed shut like maybe she could fast-forward the whole ordeal.
Pete was already leaning over her, narrating the controls like she knew a damn thing about aviation.
Lillian sat on Pete’s other side, practically glowing, her sunglasses perched like she was starring in a travel commercial.
“This is incredible,” Lillian said, voice tinny in the headset. “Best bachelorette idea yet.”
“Thank you,” Izzy beamed as if she’d personally invented helicopters.
Kiera looked less certain. She gripped her seat belt with both hands, her smile too tight. “It’s all going to be fine,” she said, but the way she stared at the horizon said otherwise.
Maggie’s stomach dropped as the rotors picked up speed. The helicopter lurched, a stutter of movement that had her swearing under her breath. “Nope. Nope, nope — this is a bad idea.”
Beside her, Gwen’s hand settled gently over hers, steady and grounding. She didn’t say anything at first — just left her warm palm there until Maggie unclenched enough to breathe.
Finally, Gwen’s voice came through the headset, calm, even. “It’s okay. Just look at me.”
Maggie did, though her pulse still hammered. Gwen’s expression was maddeningly composed and confident, like she was waiting for a meeting to start instead of about to be lifted into the sky in a plastic bubble.
The ground fell away. Maggie’s breath caught.
The Strip dropped beneath them, glittering like spilled jewels, then the desert opened up — vast, golden, endless.
“Holy shit!” Pete shouted, pressing her face to the glass. “We’re flying to the Grand Canyon!”
The pilot laughed, angling them toward the horizon. “Ten minutes and you’ll see it.”
Danica groaned, fumbling for the little paper bag tucked into her fanny pack.
Izzy rubbed her back, already laughing. “Don’t puke yet, we’re not even at the good part.”
Maggie forced herself to keep her eyes on Gwen, not the tilt of the world outside. Gwen gave her hand a squeeze — firm, certain — and the panic in her chest loosened, just slightly.
And when she risked a glance outside, just for a second, the desert stretched out forever, the Colorado River carving a glittering line through the canyon, impossibly vast, impossibly beautiful.
Her breath caught for a different reason this time.
The others were pressed to the windows, oohing and aahing, Pete practically climbing over Lillian to point something out, Izzy laughing as Kiera squeaked when the helicopter tilted.
Even Danica, pale and clutching her paper bag, cracked a smile when Pete kissed the top of her head through the headset mic.
Maggie couldn’t look. She tried once — caught the flash of the river glinting like a shard of glass far, far below — and her stomach flipped so hard she thought she might join Danica in the barf bag club.
So she anchored herself on Gwen instead.
Her eyes stayed fixed on Gwen’s profile: the clean line of her jaw, the calm set of her mouth, the way the headset sat snug against her hair.
Gwen didn’t fidget, didn’t crane to the window, didn’t flinch when the cabin dipped.
She just sat steady, her hand still over Maggie’s like she’d decided this was her only job.
Maggie gripped back shamelessly, nails biting into her palm through Gwen’s skin. The rotors thundered overhead, the canyon unfurling around them, but Gwen’s touch steadied her through it.
It was infuriating, how composed she was. Infuriating and unbearably comforting.
Maggie felt her chest squeeze, not from fear this time but from the sheer force of memory — every time Gwen had steadied her before. In hospital rooms. In principals’ offices. At funerals. Always with that same maddening calm, as if she could carry Maggie’s fear and her own at the same time.
Her throat tightened. She should look out the window, take in the view everyone was gasping over, but she couldn’t.
She let her eyes drift down Gwen’s jaw, her neck, the bare skin of her arm.
All things Maggie had memorized over the years, could draw from memory alone.
Technically, she’d been the one to draw the first draft of the tattoo on her arm. It suited her. Of course it did.
The window, the symmetry, the way the vines crept up like they were daring the stone to stay still—it was so Gwen. Precision wrapped in wildness. Maggie traced the air above it with her eyes, half expecting her fingertip to catch on a carved edge.
It looked like something sacred and unfinished at the same time. A cathedral mid-restoration. A space that used to reflect the beauty of the world and was learning how to hold light again.
And maybe that was why it undid her a little. Because Gwen didn’t need a tattoo to say who she was, but somehow this one did anyway.
“Still okay?” Gwen asked, her voice tinny through the headset but low enough that it felt private.
Maggie swallowed hard and nodded, her voice gone.
Gwen smiled — not big, not showy, just the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth, like she’d heard the answer anyway.
So Maggie kept her gaze there, clinging to it, riding out the roar of the rotors and the sweep of the canyon with only Gwen’s steadiness holding her together.
The helicopter tilted slightly, dipping toward the canyon rim, and Maggie squeezed her eyes shut.
Through the headset, Gwen’s voice came, a steadiness Maggie could lean on. “I’ve got you. Take a look, or you’ll regret it.”
Maggie forced her eyes toward the window, just for a second. The world dropped away into a vast, impossible chasm — layers of red and gold carved by centuries, the river weaving like a snake at the bottom. The sheer scale of it made her stomach lurch.
She sucked in a breath, then immediately buried her face in Gwen’s shoulder, shutting it all out. “I’m fine right here,” she muttered, her words muffled against the fabric of Gwen’s shirt.
Gwen chuckled, low and warm, the sound vibrating through Maggie’s cheek. Her hand squeezed Maggie’s once, sure and certain.
Maggie let herself stay there, pressed against Gwen, heart hammering too fast to be fear alone.
The rotors droned steadily, the canyon unfurling endlessly below. Maggie kept her face tucked into Gwen’s shoulder, breathing shallow, when a rustle caught her ear.
Kiera, sitting across from Danica, was digging in her bottomless tote bag like she was about to produce a full pharmacy. A moment later, she pulled out a little packet and held it out. “Here. Alcohol wipes. You taught me they help with nausea sometimes, so I always carry one for you.”
Danica blinked at her, pale and sweaty, then took the packet like it was holy relic. She pressed the wipe to her nose, inhaled, and promptly burst into tears.
“Oh, my god,” she sniffled, voice cracking through the headset. “That is… so nice of you.”
Everyone froze for a beat. Then Pete let out a bark of laughter, clutching her chest. “She’s crying because you gave her a wet wipe. This is incredible.”
“I’m serious,” Danica said, her chin wobbling. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me in my life.”
Kiera looked stricken for half a second, then started laughing too, her shoulders shaking. Izzy pulled her into a side hug, muffling her giggles against Kiera’s hair.
Even Lillian laughed — graceful, delighted, tipping her head back. “We should nominate Kiera for sainthood. St. Kiera of the Anti-Nausea Wipes.”
Maggie snorted against Gwen’s shoulder, and Gwen’s chest moved with quiet laughter under her cheek.