The beginning

I really can’t take it anymore. The hurt, the ache, the relentless teasing just travel with me wherever I go. Yeah, I’m an oddball, but is that a good enough reason for people to be so evil to one single person? To one single girl? To a girl for being single? Why? I’m not choosing to be single, I’m not choosing to be different… Is it the reading? That I don’t wear makeup or “trendy” clothes? I don’t look good with trendy clothes, anyway, not with my body. And makeup ages me, why would I ever want that? I know I’ll never be able to get a boyfriend, that’s why I’m not trying to… but is that enough of a reason for them to do what they did? This is it for me. I’ve made my peace with being different, but why can’t they just leave me alone? If they don’t want to be my friends, if none of them want to be my boyfriend, or even think that anyone in Italy will be interested in me, what’s the point of doing what they did? Of putting me on display? If I wear t-shirts to the pool, then just let me be… If I’m hiding my body just let me be, I’ve got my reasons. What was even the point...? I’m not choosing to be naked in front of other people, so why force me to it?

So, that’s it, I’m done. Take me. I’m done. Make the plane crash, let everyone feel guilty and sorry for what they’ve always done to me. Send me an angel to receive me now that we’re up in the sky; let everyone else wonder what could have been of my life. Make them pay for being so cruel! They deserve it, to carry that weight for the rest of their lives.

Still, Julia… It would really hurt her if I were to die in a plane crash, especially while on my way to see her!

…and on my way to see her for her birthday, too! Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I? What the hell am I even thinking? Ok, so maybe asking for the plane to crash while on my way to my best friend’s birthday might not be such a good idea after all. And I guess there’s also Italy to look forward to after Boston… Besides, all these people on the plane don’t really deserve to die just because it would make all the people that have hurt me hurt back… so–

‘Excuse me, miss, could I borrow your magazine?’ the young man sitting by Fernanda’s side pointed to her flight magazine.

Her neighbour only smiled at her, his tan skin accentuating his gleaming teeth. He had brown eyes and thick eyebrows, a perfectly defined chin and thin lips. He was dressed in a smart suit and his hair was slicked back. She handed him the magazine, gingerly covering her open journal with her other arm, hoping that he hadn’t read her worst feelings as she wrote them down. She checked her watch. They were only about halfway to Boston.

She hated flying. Then again, waiting in airports, frozen meals, and looking for angels out the window was still very worth it if the destination meant three weeks in Massachusetts with Julia Devon. It had been five years since they’d last saw each other, but she was the only person Fernanda felt really understood her. My sister of another mother and another father, Fernanda thought as she watched the clouds out the window. Their relationship had been one of letters and tears, but also of much laughter. Julia was as much an outcast as Fernanda, which was probably why they got along so well. Julia didn’t criticize Fernanda when she started dressing like a boy, and even started wearing a similar style; and they could talk about books for hours. The prospect of spending Julia’s 18th birthday with her, which also happened to coincide with the Summer Solstice that year, was really the only thing that motivated a real smile from Fernanda, especially after her disastrous graduation camping trip.

Fernanda opened her journal again to try to write again, but out of the corner of her eye her seat neighbour was proving very distracting as he fidgeted with the magazine and kept looking at her. She noticed that he wore a gold ring with a black stone on his right ring finger. Fernanda rubbed her palms on her cargo jeans, tugging unintentionally on her blue lumberjack shirt. She saw him watching the movement and she crossed her arms over her chest.

Just then the plane jerked and Fernanda took a sharp intake of air. She pointedly looked out the window to avoid the likely “There’s nothing to worry about” conversation that her seat neighbour might try to soothe her with, if that was the kind of person he was; not a very good idea, once she saw the rolling black clouds surrounding them.

The Captain announced they would be flying through a thunderstorm. All routine, the Captain said, reminding everyone to remain in their seats and wear their seatbelts. A flight attendant passed them asking if there was anything urgent before she took her seat by the cabin as well. The plane jerked and she nearly fell over, Fernanda’s hand shooting out to balance her even though two other people sat between her and the flight attendant. The woman smiled at her and the man at the end of the row woke up with a start, swiftly falling back asleep as the flight attendant left to her seat. Fernanda couldn’t imagine how the man at the end of the row could sleep so easily through this. Fernanda’s neighbour told her well done for trying to help, and then just sat there smiling at her while she attempted to look out the window, still not an easy feat, considering the darkness of the clouds. Gods, I wish I were old enough to drink.

She didn’t even like drinking, but the odd circumstances were provoking the thought. She couldn’t understand what her seat neighbour was attempting. It was never like that. Even when people don’t know her, they instantly judge me, instantly hurt me. They instantly let me know that I’m never going to be as wonderful as them. So, why do they blame me for going back to my books and my stories that give me something good to look forward to? I’m not evading them, they’re pushing me out! So let them just shift away from me and get on with their own lives.

She opened her diary to write the thoughts whirling in her head, only to find her neighbour still looking at her, smiling.

He asked her name.

‘Fernanda.’

‘Marko. Business or pleasure?’

Ugh, millions of word combinations available and he asks this!, she thought. She considered the outcome of her answers before she spoke again.

‘Visiting my best friend.’

‘Meeting a client.’

‘I figured.’

‘And what do you do? Wait a second, let me guess. You look like an interior designer. No, no, you’re a fashion magazine editor.’

‘No. I just finished high school.’

‘Really? Oh, darn, you look so much more mature than that. In fact, I was just going to say that you looked like you were still in college.’

‘No. I’m seventeen.’

‘Oh, no. Well, now that I know that seducing you is illegal, I’d better stop.’

Fernanda smiled politely and turned to the window. What a line. As if anybody would mistake her for anything glamorous like that. To her complete astonishment, he invited her to join the mile-high club in a low voice. When she refused, he started looking at every female passenger within sight and flirting with a flight attendant, until a particular woman caught his attention and he was very crude about the fact that he would follow her into the lavatories.

Fernanda rolled her eyes towards the window and continued to look at the clouds, toying with the dolphin pendant that hung around her neck. The thunderstorm was falling behind. She wondered what she would do if she actually saw an angel. Would she cheer and point it out to the rest of the passengers? Would she keep the blissful experience to herself? Would she pass out?

Marko came back looking tousled and content, and Fernanda caught a very loud wisp of a thought, (I hope she believes I was with that woman... Make her a little jealous, make her wonder what if it’d been her). She did wonder – the man was very handsome, indeed – but she wasn’t about to have her first time with just some random stranger on a plane. There was no more conversation until the plane landed, but he kept looking at her sideways. There was no use trying to write anymore. It was too intrusive to have someone continuously looking at her like that. At least she was lucky that he hadn’t asked what she was writing. She took out her book from the seat pocket and pretended not to notice Marko for the rest of the flight.

The plane landed and she got up to retrieve her rucksack from the overhead compartment. As she pulled it out, a book fell on top of her head and bounced down to the seat Marko had left moments before. It was beautiful and strangely alluring. Small and dressed in dark leather that might have once been red; the title read Aradia: the Gospel of the Witches in gold letters, and Leland on the spine, also in gold letters. She flicked through some of the pages and saw that it consisted of several Italian accounts of the teachings of witchcraft during medieval times, all of them shown in the original Italian, with the English translation side to side in every page. She was a little stunned. Was it a history book? It sure seemed like it, albeit a very special one, because the accounts collected there seemed not to be the kind that we would normally see in history class. She scanned the introduction and saw that the folk tales had been collected during anthropological research, and that it was a first edition. Maybe it was the result of deep research, used openly for the purpose of teaching people the realities of witchcraft, although perhaps only those who chose to delve into the real magical arts nowadays were familiar with it. She was intrigued.

Someone cleared their throat behind her and she was forced to move. She put the book in her rucksack, along with her journal and the paperback she’d been reading during the flight, then looked around for a second, suddenly conscious that she was standing in a line of people. After a few moments, the line moved and she was soon out of the plane.

~*~

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