Lucia
I don’t sleep. I close my eyes and tell myself I will, because that’s what people do on red-eye flights. Because my body is wrecked and my muscles ache and my head feels stuffed with cotton. I even tilt my seat back the smallest, most polite amount.
My mind ignores the instructions. Every time I get close to drifting, Marco’s face slides back into focus like it’s been waiting just beneath the surface.
The way his jaw looked right before he shoved me.
The sound of porcelain breaking. The weight of his hand on my wrist, the pressure just shy of breaking skin, chosen precisely because it wouldn’t leave the wrong kind of mark.
I swallow and open my eyes again. The cabin lights are dimmed, the kind of soft blue meant to trick your body into rest. Most of business class is quiet now despite the drama from earlier.
A handful of passengers are cocooned under blankets, screens dark or glowing faintly.
The engines hum in a steady, almost soothing way, like the plane is breathing for all of us.
Beside me, the stranger is awake. I don’t look at him directly at first. I feel him the way I felt him before.
Present, contained, a steady weight in the seat next to mine.
His book is open again, the same page he’s been on for…
I glance at the seatback clock, then force my eyes away before I look too obvious.
Twenty minutes.
He hasn’t turned it once.
My chest loosens, just a little, at that realization. Not because it’s funny—though it is, faintly—but because it tells me something important. He isn’t restless. He isn’t simmering. He isn’t wound tight, waiting for an excuse to snap.
Marco used to pretend to read like that when he was high. Staring at the same paragraph while his leg bounced and his fingers drummed and his jaw worked like he was chewing through his own anger. A coiled thing. Violence compressed so tightly, it had nowhere to go except outward.
This man’s stillness is different. Intentional. Chosen. Like he knows exactly how much space his body takes up and has decided not to take any more than necessary.
I shift slightly, easing the blanket higher over my legs, and the movement catches his attention. His gaze flicks toward me and away again, quick and unobtrusive, like he’s checking that I’m still okay without making a production of it.
I hate how much that matters.
I stare at the dark oval of the window, watching the faint reflection of the cabin lights slide across it as we move.
Somewhere out there is nothing but night and air and distance.
Somewhere below us is a city I’m not in anymore.
An apartment with shattered porcelain in the sink and a cabinet door hanging crooked, a lemon that rolled slowly across marble.
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth until the image dulls.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his hand move.
It’s subtle. A small, unconscious gesture.
His fingers lift and brush the place just behind his ear, not scratching exactly, more like checking something is still there.
The motion is quick, absentminded, and then his hand drops back to the book like nothing happened.
I blink. My brain latches onto it immediately, cataloging it the way it catalogs exits and expressions and changes in tone. A tell. Not a dangerous one. Not the kind Marco had, where I learned to measure how long he rubbed his jaw or how fast he paced to predict how bad it would get.
This is… human. Thoughtful. Like a man who gets caught thinking and doesn’t bother hiding it.
The realization lands quietly and somehow still knocks the breath out of me. I feel safer next to this stranger than I ever felt in Marco’s bed.
The thought is so sudden, so stark, that I almost laugh… and then almost cry. I don’t do either. I just sit there, heart knocking against my ribs, trying to understand how something so simple can feel so enormous.
Marco’s bed was familiar. It was warm. It was supposed to be safe by default, because it was mine, because he said it was, because I told myself that being wanted meant being protected.
This… this is nothing. Two people in adjacent seats, separated by an armrest and a lifetime of things we haven’t said. And yet my shoulders aren’t crawling toward my ears. My breath isn’t shallow in the same frantic way. I’m alert, yes, but not braced.
The difference matters. It scares me how much it matters.
I shift again, trying to get comfortable without drawing attention, and this time the movement earns me more than a glance. He closes the book just enough to mark his place with a finger, then turns toward me fully.
“Running to,” he says quietly, “or running from?”
The words land like a dropped glass. For a split second, my body goes cold. Every instinct I have screams deflect. Joke it off. Lie. Say something vague and harmless and untrue enough that it won’t cost me anything.
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. I stare at him, frozen, my heart slamming so hard, I’m sure he can hear it. The question wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t prying. It was asked the way you ask something you’re genuinely curious about, something you’re prepared not to be answered.
That somehow makes it worse.
I could say to. I could say a break, or a fresh start, or nowhere in particular. All the phrases people use to dress up escape as adventure. Instead, I hear myself answer honestly.
“From.”
The word is bare. Undecorated. It hangs between us, fragile and real.
He doesn’t flinch. If anything, his expression softens, just a fraction, like something has settled into place instead of breaking.
“Good,” he says after a moment.
I blink. “Good?”
A corner of his mouth lifts. Not a smile exactly. More like an acknowledgment. “People don’t run from things often enough.”
We sit there for a few seconds, the hum of the plane filling the space, and I wait for the follow-up questions. Why? From who? Are you okay? The interrogations that always come dressed as concern.
They don’t. He just turns his book face-down on his lap, a quiet signal that he’s choosing this conversation, and asks, “Are you safe now?”
The simplicity of it almost breaks me. I don’t know how to answer, not fully. Safe is a big word. It’s a promise people like Marco used to make right before taking it away. It’s a concept that feels theoretical more often than not.
But I’m on a plane. He’s not here. The door is locked behind me in a way that matters.
“I will be,” I say carefully.
He nods once, like that answer makes sense to him.
“And you?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Are you… going home?”
He exhales softly through his nose, gaze drifting to the aisle, to the darkened cabin beyond it. When he looks back at me, there’s something unguarded there. Tired. Honest in a way that doesn’t ask for anything.
“I don’t know where that is anymore.”
I nod. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
He glances at me, like he hadn’t expected agreement. “Does it?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes places don’t change. You just… stop fitting in them.”
He’s quiet for a beat. Then, “Or they keep expecting a version of you that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Or never really did,” I add.
That earns a look. Not one of surprise. Recognition.
We don’t exchange names. Neither of us offers. It feels intentional without ever being stated.
“So,” he says after a moment, “what do you do?”
“I plan events,” I reply. “Logistics. Schedules. Making sure everything runs the way it’s supposed to.”
“Sounds stressful.”
“It can be.” A pause. “But I like knowing how things fit together.”
He nods, like that answer tells him more than I meant it to.
“And you?”
“I work with… people,” he says.
I wait.
“Negotiations. Fixing problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
His mouth tilts slightly. “The kind that don’t fix themselves.”
“Those are the worst ones.”
“Usually,” he agrees.
Silence settles again, but it’s not awkward. Just careful. Like we’re both aware there are places we could go and we’re choosing not to.
“My mother,” I say suddenly, surprising myself, “was very good at pretending everything was fine.”
He looks at me fully now. “Even when it wasn’t?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a learned skill.”
I huff quietly. “Unfortunately.”
He doesn’t smile, but something shifts in his expression. “My father thought control was the same thing as strength.”
I don’t hesitate. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “It taught me a lot.”
“Just not what he thought it would?”
“Exactly.”
I breathe out slowly. “Funny how that works.”
“Not funny,” he says. “But familiar.”
We sit with that for a moment. Then the words slip out of me before I can weigh them.
“I stayed too long,” I say, “because I was afraid of being alone.”
I brace for it. The shame. The internal correction. The voice that tells me I should’ve known better.
It doesn’t come. He just nods.
“I stayed too long,” he says quietly, “because I was afraid of becoming my father.”
I turn toward him. “That’s… different,” I say.
“Is it?”
I consider it. “No,” I admit. “I guess it isn’t.”
Time moves strangely after that. The cabin lights stay dim. The engines keep their steady rhythm. At some point, a flight attendant passes through quietly, checking belts and blankets like a guardian making sure the world hasn’t tilted too far.
I realize, distantly, that my shoulders have dropped. That my jaw doesn’t hurt from clenching. That I haven’t checked my phone in over an hour.
By the time the captain’s voice announces our descent, my throat feels tight in a different way.
We’ve been talking for nearly two hours. Two hours, and I’ve told this man more about myself than I told Marco in two years. Not details. Not the worst of it. But truths. Clean ones. Unfiltered by fear of consequences.
He hasn’t asked about the bruises. Not once. He hasn’t tried to fix anything or offer solutions or tell me what I should do next. He’s listened. Really listened. Like my words matter simply because they’re mine.
The realization is dizzying.
As the plane begins its slow descent, I find myself wondering, dangerously, what it would be like to keep talking. To have coffee somewhere bright and ordinary. To learn his name, his tells, the shape of his life outside this narrow slice of shared night.
The thought is warm. And terrifying. Because wanting is the first step toward needing, and I promised myself, on the floor of that apartment, shaking and broken, that I wouldn’t need anyone again. That I would build my life small and sturdy and self-contained enough that no one could knock it over.
I can’t afford this.
When the wheels hit the runway with a solid, grounding jolt, I feel both relief and loss curl together in my chest. This was a pause. A liminal space. A place between where I came from and where I’m going.
I gather my things as the cabin lights brighten, my movements slower now, reluctant. He watches me without comment, that same quiet attentiveness, like he understands exactly why I’m pulling back.
At the door, as we stand and wait our turn to disembark, he leans just slightly closer—not touching, not crowding.
“If you ever find yourself wondering,” he says softly, “running doesn’t mean you’re weak.”
I meet his eyes, and for a moment, the world narrows to just us. Two people who met in the dark and told each other the truth because it felt safer than pretending.
“I know.”