Brothers At War [completed; unedited]

Brothers At War: Chapter Twelve

“Good afternoon! Where are you flying today?” the woman at the check-in desk asked me.

“London.” I sighed, wondering if this was the right thing to do or if I was simply being a coward by running away. It was wrong that I loved him and I couldn’t be with him.

I couldn’t be with someone who was only going to break my heart six months down the line. I needed someone that was going to love me always and wasn’t going to leave the minute things began getting a little difficult between the two of us; I needed someone that wasn’t Marcus Barnes.

“Madame?” the blonde interrupted my thoughts and brought me back to reality.

“Sorry? What?” I uttered quietly.

“May I have your passport, please?”

“Sure.” I spoke hesitantly as I pulled it from my handbag and handed it to her over the counter. She took a moment to study the picture which was on there and took several glances at my face, the look of confusion evident as her features all contorted into one.

I knew that the photo didn’t look anything like I did now and I needed to renew the passport to update the picture, I just hadn’t got round to it and now there was no real reason for me to update it either.

“Are you checking any bags?” she almost managed to smile.

“Yes. These two please.”

“Please place them on the scale.” she instructed, pointing to scales beside her and I emotionlessly did as she had asked me to do; the sooner this was over with the better it was going to be. I could get back to my life and I would only have to see Marcus one more time before I declared that I never wanted to see him again; either that I would quit my job and find something else to do simply so I could avoid him.

“Will you be taking on a carry-on with you?” the woman asked without looking up from whatever she was doing.

“Only my handbag.”

“And did you pack the bags yourself, or did you have someone else do it for you?” she grinned, looking up at me this time. She looked like she was genuinely happy here, either that she was good at putting on a smile for the customers and she hated this job more than anything.

“I had help packing them, but I packed the majority of them myself.” I mused.

“Brilliant.”

“I am assuming that, as on the journey here, there’s no need for me to pick my luggage up at the stopovers?” I enquired.

“No. It will go straight through to London.” she smiled once again, handing me back my passport and some pieces of paper. “Here are your boarding passes. Your flight leaves from gate 7B and it’ll begin boarding at 1:00. Your seat number is 5F.”

“Thank you.” I muttered as I walked away from the desk and took a seat in the middle of the airport, checking the time on my phone I saw that I only had half hour before I was allowed to board my flight.

Only half hour before I was out of this place and on the way back to my shambles of a life. I already knew when I got back home, the first thing I would be doing was sleeping for as long as humanly possible, I would then have to phone Evva and tell her about this nightmare of a week I’ve had.

She would want to know everything. From whether I slept with him to whether or not I got Matt back, as I had told her I was going to do so many times; though I was drunk when I announced that to her and I always regretted it the following morning.

I glanced at the people around me and, no matter where I looked, all I could see was people who were happy with each other.

Couples holding hands and laughing at each other’s little comments, but smiling when the one of them said they loved the other.