Dear Braylin...

Chapter 12

I sat in LAX, waiting for my flight to Toronto. I left Laos a few nights ago, and had been staying in a hotel in Bangkok. I left the next night after my fight with Ollie, after he tried to propose. I was sitting on my computer, looking for apartments in Waterloo, near my grandparents house. I told my parents I was coming back after winter break, so they didn't expect me back for a while.

I was typing in some information to rent a place near Laurier, where I went to university. I noticed a young man sitting across from me, who looked around my age. He seemed familiar, but I shook it off. I couldn't run into multiple people in one month from my past. He was staring intensely at the back of my laptop, which only had stickers on it. There were some Vans stickers from my shoes, some stickers from the school when I was a kid, and some stickers from travel but nothing too appealing.

"Excuse me," the guy said. "Is that sticker from VIS, in Laos?"

"Yes, I went there and taught there recently." What was this guy's motive?

"I went there as well, when I was in grade 8. I graduated from there. Looking at that sticker reminded me of a friend."

All of this running into people from my past was getting to be too much. I simply smiled and closed my laptop, putting it in my backpack. He moved his gaze to it, furrowing his eyebrows.

"She had the same backpack as you as well. Same unicorn keychain, her friend gave it to her."

"Yeah, I got this from a tiny shop near my house. Me and my best friends all have matching ones."

We were silent for the next few minutes, before the flight attendants started opening the gate to board the flight. I stood up, going to the economy line. The guy was right behind me. I handed my ticket to the lady, and she buzzed me through the gate. I walked down the thingy to the plane, and walked to my seat. I put my suitcase above, and slid into my window seat. I hated window seats.

The guys that had been talking to me stopped at my seat, and glanced at his ticket.

"Looks like we're sitting together on this flight to YYZ."

I smiled, not trying to pass off as rude. I took my headphones out of my bag plugging them into my phone. I scrolled through my albums, settling on the Green Day album that came out in my first year at VIS. I chose the last song, which made me feel nostalgic of my first year.

The plane soon took off, and the flight attendees came down the aisles with food. I took out my headphones, setting them under my leg.

"Vegetarian or Chicken?", she asked me.

"Vegetarian." She handed me the meal, which was a roasted veggie mix over rice. Not my favorite, but I'd survive. At least there was a brownie.

The guy from the airport had looked over at me quite a few times, trying to figure out who was, I suspected. He looked like he wanted to make conversation with me, but didn't know how. I smirked at this, and decided to start a conversation myself.

"Earlier at the gate you said I reminded you of someone? Who was it that you thought of?", I asked, after finishing my meal.

"Just somebody that probably forgot about me. She was exactly like you, very similar in style and personality."

"What was her name?", not getting my answer the first time.

"She wouldn't want me to tell you, even if we still talked today. She was very conservative."

Conservative like me, as in I don't tell people my name or let others tell it for me.

"Ok, sorry for asking. Could you tell me about what she was like? I feel like I know her or something." I wasn't going to get my hopes up it was me, this person could be someone very different to who I was thinking.