I watch my suitcase trundle off down the ramp towards the waiting aircraft, the flight sticker flapping from the handle like a miniature flag and turn around to face my friends.
“Aw, come here.” Mika pulls me into a hug, the fake fur of her leopard-print jacket tickling my nose and making it even harder to hold back the tears. “I wish we were coming with you, Gi.”
I wish they were coming with me too, but that would mean introducing them to my family and telling them the truth about my fiancé, neither of which is going to happen. Not while there’s breath in my body, anyways.
Cartier goes next. She already has tears in her beautiful big eyes, and I deliberately turn away, stare at the luggage still waiting in line, owners already carrying the stress of the coming flight on their shoulders. “Gi…” Cartier holds my arms and forces me to look at her. “You know you can tell us anything, right?”
I force a smile. “Sure.”
“Only…” She sucks on her top lip and eyes me up like I just told her I’d arranged for a shipment of horror novels to land in her apartment after I’ve gone. “I don’t know. Call me cynical, but you don’t look like a woman who’s flying back to Chicago to get married.”
I tip my head back and laugh.
Mika stands next to her, shoulder to shoulder, ganging up on me.
I haven’t told them much about Seamus. My fiancé.
I’ve shown them photographs. If they realized that none of these images were of me and Seamus together, they didn’t say it out loud, and neither of them is known for their discretion and diplomacy.
Mika once told the guy in the grocery store near where we worked that I was the only twenty-three-year-old virgin in the world, and I deserved either a medal or for some adonis to come and sweep me off my feet and show me what I was missing. All with a smile on her face that promised it was in my best interests.
I did almost kiss a dark-haired adonis once. In a nightclub. I was drunk—not so drunk I didn’t know what I was doing but steaming enough to tell the adonis that he was pretty kissable. The girls rescued me with a glass of water and a reminder that my fiancé was waiting for me in Chicago, and I’d be plagued with guilt in the morning.
And, of course, I didn’t stop them.
“Pre-wedding nerves,” I say.
“Wow, that’s what you’re going with.” Mika’s eyebrows do this funny dance that I’ve never been able to master. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Gianna?”
“Stay, Gi.” Cartier’s tone is serious. “Who will get drunk with Mika next weekend if you’re not here?”
“And who will tell Cartier it isn’t real life when she finishes the tear-jerker she’s currently reading?” Mika elbows Cartier in the ribs and earns herself a playful punch on the arm.
We’re the three musketeers. We’ve worked together at the women’s refuge in Montenegro for the past twelve months. We’ve helped people like Rosalie, whose husband beat her so badly when she told him she was pregnant with his child that she miscarried, her injuries leaving her unable to carry another child to full-term. We’ve cried together, made each other laugh, and generally picked each other up off the floor each time we try to stitch a broken woman back together.
They should be there when I walk down the aisle towards my future husband, but it’s because I love them that I’m leaving them behind.
“We have Internet in Chicago, you know.”
“Like you’re going to take time out from humping your new husband to speak to us.”
Mika laughs, the sound throaty and contagious, as someone’s case splits open behind us, and a man mutters, “Shit!” under his breath.
Mika and Cartier watch with bemused smiles as the guy crouches beside his luggage and starts shoving his stuff back inside. “And that right there is the reason why I travel light.” The lie just rolls off Mika’s tongue; her clothes take up more space in the apartment than mine and Cartier’s combined.
Instinct kicks in, and I leave my friends gaping while I help the guy pick up his T-shirts and sweaters and boxers which I try not to think about when I touch them. Just a regular suitcase filled with regular stuff, and not a designer label in sight.
He glances up and smiles briefly. “My girlfriend gave me a strap to wrap around my case, but I couldn’t find it when I was packing.”
“Is this it?” I pull out a heavy-duty, green nylon strap from the bottom of his case that’s either for his luggage or some kind of weird fetish.
His shoulders slump as he takes it. “Where did you…” His gaze drops to the tangle of clothes. “I packed it, huh?”
“I think that’s about it.” I stand and go back to my friends as he calls out, “Thank you!”
“Good Samaritan to the rescue.” Cartier links her arm with mine and drags me towards Customs.
“No way I was touching his tighty-whities.” Mika flexes her fingers and takes my other arm.
“Well, this is it.” I pull my arms free and turn to face them, a sense of cold dread puddling inside me.
Since the day my father requested my return to Chicago, I’ve tried convincing myself that if I think the worst, then the reality can only be better. Can’t it?
I mean, Seamus isn’t an ogre. Well, he isn’t green, and he doesn’t live in a swamp, but he isn’t exactly unpleasant on the eye; he just isn’t the guy I’d have chosen for myself. If choosing for myself was an option. The real problem is that I’m not in love with him.
I’m not in love with anyone else either, so it isn’t like my heart is breaking at the thought of vowing to love him till death do us part. But one day, I might’ve fallen in love with someone else. I might’ve met my soulmate in a dog shelter in the Greek islands, or while feeding sharks in the Bahamas, or at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, but all these opportunities have been snatched away from me before I’ve even had a chance to experience life.
Because of our family.
Family first and always, even for the youngest daughter.
Even for the youngest daughter who has expressed her desire to stay out of the family business. I guess an alliance with the Irish mob means more than a career spent working with vulnerable women and animals. I can already picture Seamus’s response when I tell him that I want to set up a women’s refuge in Chicago. “Yeah, right. Oh, you’re serious. Like you want me to care about people?”
“Stay in touch, Gi.” Cartier pulls me in for another hug.
“There’ll be fucking hell to pay if you don’t.” Mika buries my face in her faux-fur coat. “We’ll be on the first plane to Chicago to whip your sorry ass straight back here.”
I’m going to miss this banter and laughter and friendship.
“I will. I promise.”
And I mean it, I do. I’m just not sure how Seamus will feel about having my colorful friends come to visit his rambling mansion, or how I’ll ever explain my reservations to them when they see the kind of wealth I already have and am marrying into.
I walk away from them and don’t look back. I flash my fake passport at the guard working the security gate and head through to the departure lounge with the sinking realization that this will probably be the last time I ever see my friends.
I find an uncomfortable plastic seat and wait with every other economy class traveler for the digital board to announce the boarding gate number. My father protested about me traveling cattle-class, but this is the only time he has ever lost an argument since my mom died. Even my sister Mel fought in my corner and convinced him that blending in makes perfect sense. Who’s going to notice a young woman traveling alone wearing a patchwork coat picked up from a thrift store and practical footwear?
I keep my head down. I sense excitement, anticipation, homesickness and anxiety oozing from the pores of everyone around me. Everyone has a story. But I’d wager that none has a story quite like mine. It doesn’t make me extraordinary though, does it?
The women we help at the refuge are extraordinary. They’re survivors. They’ve been defeated, destroyed and systematically dismantled piece by piece by men who would rather speak with their fists than their tongues, and yet they get back up and they keep right on fighting. Because the alternative is lying down and giving up, and they refuse to let violence win.
Ha! if they only knew…
When the gate is finally announced, I shuffle onto the shuttle bus to the waiting aircraft, file on board, and find my seat. I’m next to the window. It means that I can stare at the clouds without having to pretend to be asleep to avoid making small talk with the person in the next seat.
Who almost lands on top of me while he’s trying to stow his carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment. “I’m so sorry.” He uses the back of the seat to regain his balance, a smile appearing on his face when he recognizes me from the check-in area.
“Hi.” I raise my hand in an almost-wave and gesture at the open locker above our heads. “At least your bag stayed intact this time.”
“Well, so far, so good.” He stands in front of his seat so that other passengers can pass him by and gets his arm stuck in his jacket as he tries to shrug it off. The jacket gets shoved in the overhead compartment, and the bag comes back out. He rummages around inside it for a packet of Swedish Fish and a book, zips it back up, and then finally sits down.
It’s exhausting just watching him. He’s the kind of guy who seems to be fidgeting even when he’s apparently sitting still.
“Candy?” He rips open the packet spilling colored fish into his lap. He mutters to himself as he picks them up, and when I decline, says, “I can’t say I blame you. I don’t really like them myself, but my ears pop if I don’t suck on something during take-off and landing.” His cheeks grow inflamed when he realizes what he said. “If I don’t suck on candy, I mean. If I don’t have something to keep my mouth occupied.”
I can’t help chuckling.
He raises his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll shut up now and let you enjoy your flight in peace.”
“I’m not sure that enjoy is the right word.”
He wrinkles his nose and peers around at the other passengers trying to get comfortable in the cramped space assigned to them. The man across the aisle stretches his legs underneath the seat in front of him. The woman behind me pulls the laminated information from the seat pocket and reads it. Everyone handles the impending flight in their own way.
“Lucky bastards who get to travel first class, huh?”
I smile. It could’ve been me, and sure, it would make the flight more bearable, but ultimately, it would change nothing. I’d still be leaving behind the life I chose for myself and going back to a life I didn’t ask for.
“They’re probably sipping champagne from crystal flutes right about now,” he continues, popping an orange fish candy into his mouth.
I look at him properly for the first time. He has unruly brunette curls, a round face that might be kind of cute, like the goofy best friend in a romcom kind of cute, and hazel eyes with puffy circles underneath. There’s no spark of attraction there; we’re just two people who happen to be on the same flight back to the States.
“Do you read thrillers?” He turns his novel around to show me the cover when he senses me looking at him.
“Not really. I’m more of a cozy mystery kind of girl.” It isn’t true but hiding who I really am is so ingrained in me that I don’t even have to think about my responses to questions.
“Nothing that gets your pulse racing.” He smiles. I don’t think he even registers the innuendos every time he opens his mouth to speak.
He rests his head back against the seat and closes his eyes, and I turn away to peer out of the window at the activity taking place around the aircraft. I’m excited to see Mel and Lucian when I get back. We have a lot of catching up to do, and even though things haven’t been the same since she married Xander, my big sister will always be my best friend. My ally.
If anyone will understand how I feel right now, it’s Mel. Because her marriage to Xander was arranged too. Even if he is the love of her life.
I’m grateful when the doors close, and the aircraft starts taxiing along the runway. Once we’re in the air, there’s nothing I can do about it. No going back. No point in churning through what ifs and maybes. This is my life now, and I might as well start accepting it.
I shut my eyes and allow my mind to wander. I think about my family, and the home I grew up in. My bedroom with its pale gold and ivory walls and the king-sized bed. The gardens and the pool and the tennis courts, and the way we still dress up for the evening meal because it’s what my mom always wanted.
But the wealth and the comfort and the trappings seem to fade when I think about my life in Montenegro with Mika and Cartier. Sure, we saw some terrible sights. We saw women bleeding internally from injuries dealt out by their husbands. We saw burn scars and self-inflicted wounds, and broken bones that had healed awkwardly. But we also saw spirit and determination and bravery, and we compensated for these sights by laughing hard and having fun in our leisure time.
Leaving it behind is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I remind myself that those women didn’t get a choice either, and they still fought back even when they had nothing left to fight for. Who am I to complain about a life of enforced luxury when so many women have to rebuild their lives from scratch?
My travel companion is quiet for a while. I hear him turning the pages of his book. Then, when the flight attendants come around with drinks and snacks, he stands up and retrieves his bag from the overhead locker.
“Do you play cards?” His voice jolts me from my reverie, and I open my eyes to find him holding a deck of cards in his hand.
“A little.” I think about messy drunken games with Mika and Cartier, the three of us sitting cross-legged on the living room floor of our apartment with a bottle of Tequila and a mountain of potato chips.
“It’ll pass the time. What do you say?”
I smile. “Sure.” It will take my mind off Seamus for a short while at the very least.
We play a few games of Rummy. Andy—he tells me his name while he deals out the first hand—doesn’t even complain when I win every round. So, when he suggests a game I’ve never heard of, I go along with it. He was right about one thing: it’s better than sitting there counting the seconds and tracking the flight path on the screen in front of me.
The games get sillier, and noisier. Andy orders a gin and tonic for each of us, which takes the edge off the uneasiness in my stomach.
The first gin and tonic leads to another, and then a third. Andy is determined to win a game and laughingly tells me that there’s a saying that goes, Lucky at cards, unlucky in love. He doesn’t talk about his girlfriend, and I’m grateful because it means that I don’t have to talk about Seamus.
But I should’ve eaten at the airport. I barely touched the on-board meal of meatballs and pasta, the smell making me feel a little queasy, and by the time I’m on my fourth gin with hardly a splash of tonic, my head is spinning.
I rub my face with both hands, and guzzle water from a plastic bottle. Alcohol doesn’t normally affect me, but then it isn’t every day I’m flying home to meet my fiancé, the man I’m being forced to marry. I’ve let it get to me more than I realized.
“Gianna? Are you okay?” Andy’s eyes are filled with concern, his eyebrows almost meeting in the middle.
“I need to…” I squeeze my eyes shut. Try to stand up. “…go to the restroom.”
The plane lists sideways, and I land heavily back in my seat. Bile rises in my throat.
“Sit down, there’s a good girl.” Andy leans across me and fastens the safety belt around my waist.
“No.” I shake my head. “I need to get up…” I can’t remember why I need to stand, or where I wanted to go, but the situation suddenly feels off-kilter.
“You’re not going anywhere, Gianna.”
Andy feels off-kilter. He isn’t smiling. His eyes are cold and hard, and I can’t be certain, but did I detect a faint accent when he spoke?
I try to raise my hand to call the flight attendant, but my arm feels like it’s weighed down with a bucket of sand. “They won’t help you,” Andy says before the world goes black.
