Chapter 19. Ophelia #2
But I stare at the journey time ticking down on Belladonna’s dashboard like it’s a countdown to my demise. I scrub clammy palms over my tights, trying to think of things I can see, smell, hear, taste.
The gray water and foggy hills of Loch Glascarnoch are vanishing in the rearview mirror. I have a horrible fear that I’ll turn back around when the time comes and let Alex down.
Just over thirteen seconds. That’s how long my parents were in freefall. It doesn’t sound long, but I bet it was. I wonder if they were conscious. If they knew what was coming. If it felt like the longest thirteen seconds of their lives.
It’s probably even longer in a plane.
This is not a helpful line of thought.
By the time a warning light forces us to stop for gas about fifteen minutes from the airport, I’m paralyzed by fear.
Vincenzo hops out to fill Belladonna’s car for her, tugging my door open to poke his head in. “Want anything for the … umm … the bus ride?”
“The bus ride?” I say, voice distant and gaze focused straight ahead through the windshield. My teeth chatter, hands shake, pulse hammers.
“I’ll get you some chocolate,” he says, but he sounds far away.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this scared.
“Ophelia, hey,” says Jack, like he’s trying to distract a child. He drapes his hoodie over my legs. “Get her some activities to do, Vin. Like a puzzle book. And a pack of gum.”
“Will do.” He slams the door.
Jack turns to me. “Download a film and some music, or a podcast or something for the flight. It’ll help.”
Belladonna scowls at me but says nothing.
When Vincenzo gets back to the car, he has what looks like a weekly food shop for a family of four. He dumps a plastic bag on the back seat between Jack and me. “Got you those gross Wine Gums you like, Bella. And a Red Bull.”
“Thanks, Vinnie.”
“It’s just a seven-hour bus ride, Pheelz. Nothing more.”
“Forty thousand feet in the air.”
Vincenzo turns in his seat as Belladonna pulls the car away, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. Their security guys follow suit in the black SUV behind us. “You got this. I know you do.”
Like Colette, I have some twisted affliction where people being soft and kind to me makes me sad. “Don’t.”
He rummages around in the bag, seat belt almost strangling him. He drops a packet of Werther’s Originals in my lap. “Apparently these are old person candies. You love old person shit.”
“That’s rude,” I grumble. It’s not rude at all. It’s friendship and its companionship and it’s everything I’ve been missing.
Vincenzo’s grin is lopsided, all sparkling eyes and chipped teeth. “Well … you like custard and crosswords. And peace and quiet. You think portable phone chargers are the pinnacle of technology.”
Somehow, he’s dragged a reluctant smile out of me. “These are my favorite sweets.”
He cackles victoriously, sliding back into his seat to face the front. “Fucking knew it.” He sticks his hand into the back of the car like my dad used to do whenever he heard me rustling a packet in the car. “Gimme one to try.”
I drop one into his palm, watching his oversized hand struggle with the wrapper.
He drops it into his mouth and immediately inhales it.
The other three of us can’t stop laughing, even Belladonna.
I half wonder if he is going to choke to death, but he does manage to swallow it and clear his airway.
His hand reappears immediately, fingers moving in an impatient beckoning motion.
“Another. Didn’t get to taste that one.”
“Are you going to lodge this one in your windpipe, too?”
“I’m not planning to, no.”
I give him another, finally understanding why Alex is so determined to keep Vincenzo around, despite wanting to cut ties with that world entirely. In any situation, he’s the one that keeps everyone going.
He must like the sweets, too, because his hand periodically appears in front of me all the way to the airport.
The past fifteen minutes have been a lot better, but the first thing I see when Belladonna steers us into the long-stay car park is a helicopter taking off.
“Shit,” breathes Vincenzo. He slides his headphones over my ears in half a second, music deafening, but it’s too late.
I curl in on myself, waiting for the crash, waiting for the almighty boom.
I count to thirteen, and when it doesn’t come, I count again.
I picture the helicopter spiraling down toward the rugged Scottish Landscape.
In my nightmares, it’s my name that my father screams as he falls.
If I hadn’t told them to rush home for burger night, maybe they’d still be here.
I stumble out the car, eyes fixed on my muddy Doc Martens.
I’ve come here for no reason.
There’s no way I can get on a plane.
I type Alex an apology and then decide it’s the last thing he needs.
I hit backspace furiously, all outside sound muffled by Vincenzo’s music.
He and Jack grab all the bags, and Vin lifts one of my headphones up to speak to me, cocking his head toward his father’s men.
“They wanna search you separately before you get on, I’m sorry.
They’re not fully convinced you’re stable. ”
A laugh bubbles out of me, imagining my disheveled outfit, mascara running down my face, static hair. “What could’ve possibly given them that impression?”
He smiles ruefully. “Still, I’m sorry.”
We walk into the airport. It’s quieter than when I was last here. It’s a day I can’t bear to think about. A day when Alex and I both thought being apart could be less painful than being together.
“Miss,” says one of Vincenzo’s men, pulling me aside. I snap my eyes up to Vincenzo, wide and panicked.
He gives me a wink and a thumbs up. You’ll be okay. “I’ll meet you out the other side.”
It’s different for private planes, or at least for the Morellos. We skip the short security line. Vincenzo’s men and an airport employee search me in a side room, emptying out my duffel and my tote into trays.
“You scared of flying?” the airport employee asks, as my shaking hands try to relace my boots. I nod, feeling worse by the second. Why did I think I could do this?
“It’s a breeze. Safest mode of transport. No one ever dies,” he says, popping his chewing gum. I almost throw the boot at his head.
True to his word, Vincenzo is waiting for me outside. “The bus is just refueling, then it’s ready.”
I nod, swallowing down bile that rises in my throat. “Okay.”
“Them candies are really good.”
“Yeah.”
“Would you rather have them for fingers, or every time you buy a bag of candy, there’s a finger in it?”
He drags yet another smile out of me. “Vincenzo, I have no idea.”
“I’d rather have them for fingers.”
The shaking seems to have spread from my hands to my entire body, every breath a labored effort. “Same, I think.”
“You want to know a secret?” he asks, and something about his tone forces my gaze up to his.
“No,” I grumble, shivering again. I’m sick of secrets.
“I’m scared of gunshots.”
A soft laugh escapes me, before I realize he’s serious. “You?” As kind and funny as he may seem to those he loves, he lives and breathes violence.
“Yeah, me. My mom took a bullet in the back for me when I was ten. Jumped in front of me and it caught her spine. My mom is alive and thriving, but guns lost their appeal after that.”
And just like that, I learn Vincenzo isn’t quite the happy ray of sunshine that he lets us all see. “You do shooting practice most weeks.”
“If feeling scared is what I have to do to keep my parents safe, to keep her safe,” he tilts his head in Belladonna’s direction where she picks up a takeaway coffee, “then I’d spend the rest of my life terrified.”
“Feel the fear and do it anyway,” I whisper, nodding.
I can do this. I can do anything. Especially for Alex.
“Fuck yeah, Winters.”
I feel like we just made an unspoken pact. I’ll keep being brave if you do.
One of the men in black suits and earpieces taps Vin on the shoulder. “Jet’s ready, Mr. Morello.”
We step out onto the tarmac. I wish it wasn’t windy and rainy. I wish the clouds weren’t so thick. None of it eases my nerves.
I manage the weather better than I expected. I manage the quiet whir of the idling engines, and the employees in high-vis jackets holding things that look like tennis rackets.
I manage it all, until I read the black logo that runs down the side of the white private jet. Green Aviation.
My feet slow to a stop.
Any bravery I’d had dissolves into the frigid air. Pure, undiluted terror seeps in to fill the void.
Thirteen letters, five syllables that mark my parents’ forested grave. Possibly the last two words they ever read.
The metal blades on the engine look vicious. The windows of the cockpit curl into a snarl. The wings look too thin, too fragile to withstand takeoff.
Vincenzo turns around a few paces ahead, beckoning me forward. “Come on. Can’t miss our takeoff slot.”
Panic overtakes my chest, all other rational emotions losing out.
Thirteen seconds for them. Endless agony for me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, taking the first step back.
Belladonna swivels where she’s stopped, halfway up the steps into the jet. Her face is stormier than the skies above us. She hands her laptop and coffee to the flight attendant and marches back down.
“Backing out?” she asks me, like it’s a challenge she thinks I’ll have to take her up on.
“It’s—my parents died in a Green helicopter.” I stutter over the syllables, can hardly get the final word out.
If looks could kill, I’d be bleeding into the tarmac. “Under a different CEO.”