Ignoring thelast minute hustle and bustle, and the curious stares from theother passengers, Crispin closed his eyes and shut out the world.Let them gawk. Even though he had made a considerable effort todress less Goth, he was still quite striking if not intimidatingwith his black clothes and long hair.
After a fewdeep calming breaths, he then felt an odd sensation within him.Could it be excitement? Yes, that’s what it was. He was actuallyquite excited about this adventure. At the same time, he tried veryhard to ignore that other sensation that had rankled him since theday he booked this trip.
What was that?Regret? Yes, that’s indeed what it was, and a bit of melancholythrown in for good measure. The melancholy, he was quite used to,being Goth and all that. But this odd sense of regret was reallystarting to irk him. And the worst part was, he knew exactly whatwas at the source of this regret. He was his own worst enemy and heknew it.
As much as he wanted to believe he was this impenetrableindependent sort, the truth was, he wanted what everyone elsewanted. Love, companionship, a sense of belonging. Taking a deepbreath, his mind tripped back to the day he had met Gwen at thecafé. Even though it went against everything he was trying toaccomplish on this trip, he couldn’t help but wonder if he shouldhave accepted her offer to come with him. Poor sweet thing. The look on herface when he’d refused her and walked out the door with herprecious itinerary, it had haunted him to this day.
In the verynext moment, he caught himself. She would only rip his heart out inthe end. It’s what always happened. Everyone left him. Why wouldGwen be any different? Besides, she probably wasn’t even interestedin him that way. Like she had said, she was only wanting to tagalong for fear of travelling alone.
Oh, never mind.It was better this way, Crispin thought with a heavy sigh. Timealone was what he needed most. If only he could convince his heartof that truth. As it was, visions of her danced through his mind.He envisioned those clear blue-grey eyes and those long darklashes, her guarded smile… oh, how he would love to give her a realreason to smile. She had the loveliest complexion… such rosycheeks. Quite lovely for a little mundane woman, she was. Goodlord, get a hold of yourself, he thought with a frown.
Try as he might to get her out of his mind, every time heclosed his eyes, he saw her face. He then smiled at the memory ofthe velvety sound of her voice. He must be losing it for sure. Hecould swear he could almost hear it now. Maybe he was dreaming.Wonderful, perhaps he hadfallen asleep. He would wake up any moment just intime for the landing.
Yet, somehowher voice was too real to be merely a dream. He then realized theplane hadn’t even started to move. In fact, everyone around him waslooking over their shoulders towards the back at the commotion.
From his angle,he could only see a couple of flight attendants, Anne, and a youngman, looking quite stressed out. They appeared to be in a middle ofa crisis with a couple of passengers.
Curious andgetting quite impatient, he unbuckled his seatbelt and made his wayover. Whoever this was delaying takeoff, was about to get a pieceof his mind!
“Ma’am, for the last time, we need you to move into your properseat, or we will have you removed from the plane!”
“Pardon me… What’s the hold up?” Crispin inquired.
Seeing himapproach, the flustered male flight attendant turned to him firstand very briskly ordered him to return to his seat. “Sir, we needyou to remain seated. We’ll be taking off shortly.”
“It won’t be much longer, sir,” said Anne with an apologeticsmile.
“Is that right?” Crispin challenged, unconvinced. “Doesn’t lookthat way to me.” From where he was standing, he could see they weretrying to settle a dispute between two passengers, one seated, onestanding.
At the end ofhis rope, the male attendant, added, “Please, return to your seator we’ll have you removed from the plane as well!”
Of course,Crispin would have acquiesced since he wanted nothing more than toget on his way. But not now, not after laying eyes on the cause ofthe disruption. There in front of him sat Gwen from the café, theleading lady of his recent musings.
“Gwen?” Crispin clutched at his chest. He couldn’t believe whathe was seeing. She had her eyes shut tight. She was clinging to thearmrests of her seat with all her might, her hands grasping, whiteknuckles and all. Behind the flight attendants, stood a red-facedportly man in a grey suit looking quite irate. “Gwen?” he repeated,ignoring everyone else and zeroing in on her. “What in theworld?”
“Crispin?” Hearing his voice, Gwen exhaled and peeked out ofone eye. “Please… help me.” At that, Crispin frowned all themore.
“You know each other?” Anne stepped up, relief flooding herface while the male attendant, turned his attention to the otherpassenger.
“Well, I… I mean, yes, I suppose…” Crispin stuttered, at a lossfor words.
“Thank goodness…” Anne said with a sigh. “Sir, I have a hugefavour to ask of you.”
Chapter 5
Placing a handon Crispin’s arm, Anne pleaded with him. “Your friend is indistress. Would you mind if we place her with you? I know youwanted to be on your own, but you would be doing me a huge favour.If not we’ll have to forcefully remove her from the plane. Wereally don’t want to resort to that.”
“She’s not my… I mean…” Looking from Anne’s hand on his arm toGwen’s face, Crispin started to slowly back away, struggling tocomprehend the situation for what it was. Had Gwen purposelyfollowed him? Had she actually set this whole thing up? Was shesome sort of stalker? Whatever this was, it could not behappening.
“Crispin?” Still
