All The Summers Between Us | TSITP

Exit Row.

The airport lights were too bright for a person who had just detonated her life. Lydia stood in a snaking queue with her suitcase biting her ankle and the wedding slip hidden under an oversized cardigan that wasn't fooling anyone who made eye contact with her mascara.

She was next—one person away from a counter where a woman with an immaculate bun and the soul of a guillotine was turning problems into boarding passes.

"Next," the agent said, and Lydia stepped up like a sleepwalker.

"Hi," Lydia said, "I'd like a one-way to Paris. Next available flight."

The agent blinked. "Tonight?"

"Yes." Lydia set her passport down like a truce. "Actually, now, if possible."

Lines of tapping and keyboard clicks like castanets. "You have... two options," the agent said. "One connection through Reykjavik, or a direct that boards in—" she glanced at the clock "—twenty-eight minutes."

"Direct," Lydia said, too fast. "Please. Merci. I mean—thank you."

"Checked bags?"

"One," Lydia said, wrestling the suitcase onto the scale. A small cardigan stuck out of the zipper and waved like it had a little flag. She shoved it back in. "Sorry."

The agent printed, tore, slid a boarding pass like a playing card. "Gate A12. Present passport at boarding. Bon voyage."

"Thank you," Lydia said, eyes stinging suddenly at the idea that any voyage could be bon. She took the pass, hugged it stupidly, and speed-walked through security like a person who had remembered an appointment three weeks too late.

Shoes off, shoes on. Laptop out, laptop back in. The conveyor belt ate her life and gave it back in gray bins. She jogged to A12, breathless, and arrived just as the screen flipped to BOARDING.

The universe, for once, didn't demand a sprinting montage.

On the jet bridge, cool air rushed around her. The recycled airplane scent—coffee and metal and other people's choices—hit her and, inexplicably, made her want to laugh. She'd left her wedding and was now boarding a plane like a person who had decided the answer to all problems is altitude.

"Bonjour," the flight attendant said, and Lydia's whole nervous system said oh right: Paris is real.

She found her seat—window, exit row, the legroom of redemption. The plane filled: couples negotiating overhead bins, a child bargaining with gravity and a balloon, a man complaining about seat numbers as if numbers cared.

Lydia buckled in, pressed her forehead to the cold window, and tried to swallow the ginormous lump of What have I done? sitting in her throat.

What have I done?

She let the words roll around in her head like marbles. She had walked away. From the aisle, the arch, the day. From Daniel's steady hands. From Laurel's lists. From Conrad's eyes. She pictured the garden freezing mid-breath behind her. She pictured the house waiting like a held note.

The plane pushed back. The safety demo happened in two languages that both sounded like weather. Lydia nodded along. She could open an exit. She had, in fact, just opened a giant metaphorical one in front of her entire family.

Takeoff came fast—engines heavy, runway skipping under wheels, that suspended second when ground and sky trade custody. Lydia closed her eyes. Her stomach did the rollercoaster thing; her brain did the list thing: passport? yes. Phone? yes. Charger? yes. Clothes? yes. Heart? Unconfirmed.