Chapter Twenty-Two
MILES
PAST
I watch the clouds in front of me, my eyes focusing on nothing but the white puffs that pass us by as we fly through the blue sky above Italy.
I’m on an Everglades flight from Rome to Paris today, and the conditions couldn’t be better.
My takeoff was so smooth that my co-pilot, James, even mentioned it.
He’s a senior captain with Everglades who is stationed in Europe full-time.
I’m supposed to be resting while he monitors the control panel for the next hour, but my mind won’t stop spinning.
It hasn’t stopped spinning since the day when Marina asked me that damn question. “What do you want, Miles?”
It completely stumped me. I don’t think I’ve been asked that question in a really long time. I didn’t know how to answer it, my mind was blank.
Being told for your whole life that happiness will find you when you reach the top hasn’t left much room for imagining anything other than reaching that threshold. So when asked how I see my future, I had nothing.
But when Marina spoke of her future, of what she wants, I couldn’t help but insert myself into the image she was painting.
I couldn’t stop the surge of my heart when I imagined myself as the father of her children, of the man who would run around that garden with them, who would splash their mom with water from the garden hose.
I’ve never thought much about being a father, I never had one that I could look to for inspiration. Looking at my dad and the way he was with us, that was never something I aspired for. But now, I think that maybe I could be different. Maybe I could be different for her.
What am I even talking about?
I don’t know the first thing about being a dad. How could I ever be a father when I spend more time in a plane than on land? I guess that would have to change. Would I have to give up work?
There are plenty of pilots I know who are fathers, but I see their wives at events, I see the way they look at their husbands with a sense of longing, even when they’re clinging to each other's arms.
I never want anyone I love to feel like that. I don't want Marina to feel like that.
I run a hand over my face. Why am I sitting here imagining this woman as my wife?
I’ve known her for just over two months, yet I can’t imagine being with anybody else, not after the way she makes me feel.
It terrifies me that she makes me question everything I’ve ever thought about myself.
She makes me wonder if it’s all worth it.
If reaching the top is worth all it’s cracked up to be, or if I’d find more happiness spending the rest of my life doing whatever I can to make her smile.
But I can’t promise her the future she wants. I can’t be the person she wants for her future, I’m not him. This life is all I know.
I’ve just started taking on more flights again, and as much as I hate being away from Marina, I love being in the sky again.
I can’t give this up, this job, this career I’ve spent my entire life working toward.
I’m so close to everything I’ve ever wanted, I can’t just give that all up now.
That would make me a failure, and that’s something I’ve never been; I’m not going to start now.
But I don't know where that leaves Marina and me. I can't imagine my life without this job, but now, after being with her, I somehow can’t imagine my life without her either.
But it could never work. We’d barely see each other.
I don’t know how I could commit to anything, and she deserves more than stolen moments and time crunches on our time spent together.
I can’t ask her to wait around for me all the time, even if there is nothing I'd rather do in my spare moments than be with her. I can’t make this work, I can't have it both ways. I need to make a choice, one that’s consequences could follow me for years to come.
I don’t know how I could ever make that decision, but it will be chasing me until I do.