Bound to leave

Chapter 19: Wedding bells!

"... Did you turn off the lights?", mom was muttering as Anisha was witnessing their plane approach the assigned gate.

"What? Yes, lights...we're set.", Anu acknowledged her crosstalk.

"Where is the earring? I cannot find it", Suman babbled while searching her hand bag.

Suman was so excited about this trip that she was hyperventilating about every damn thing.

"It's in the bag Ma, relax. You checked it in the cab too", she groaned.

"Fine!", her mom zipped her bag sighing and started to scan her surroundings.

"See, they started the boarding for our flight", Suman announced as she began to gather her belongings.

"Don't get up, they are boarding first class only", Anu checked her new victorian era burner phone for texts.

During her research online she read that the old Nokia phones were virtually impossible to hack into.

Her regular iPhone was kept switched off after the local phone repairing store confirmed that there was a malware installed in both their phones.

Anisha had to cock up a story to convince mom to do away with hers for the time being. They didn't have the time to fix the phones before the trip.

"Hi, Anisha!", she jerked back in her seat surprised to hear her name.

"Abhir? What are you doing here?"

"He is obviously going somewhere", Suman chimed in, Anu side eyed her for the unwanted remark.

"I had to fly in for some urgent family work, heading back today. This pretty lady here must be your mom. Hello aunty, I'm Abhir", he smiled, bringing his hand forward.

"Hi, you're right, I am Anu's mom but call me Suman", she blushed as they shook hands. Her mom was being weird. Wow.

"You guys are on this flight too?", he pointed at the gate.

"Yes", mom and she answered in harmony.

"Wonderful, I will see you inside then... Bye Suman", he waved at her and started to walk towards the ground staff.

At the counter, the airline staff scanned Abhir's boarding pass and passport before letting him through.

It's red?

His passport caught her attention immediately because it wasn't black in color like Indian passports were.

As he entered the walkway, he turned around, their eyes making contact for the last time and he winked at her. Anisha smiled back.

Mom was leading the way to find their seats in economy and was ecstatic that they had one window seat so Anu let her have it.

The flight was more or less full, there were plenty of passengers still finding their way to their seats.

Anisha picked up an in-flight magazine to scroll through while her mom was trying to find a movie to watch.

To Anisha's relief, the aisle seat on their row was still unoccupied.

She felt Suman nudge her elbow while hissing, "Abhir is coming here. Look!".

Anu looked up from the reading material, her mother was right, Abhir was making his way to the back of the plane to where theywere seated, a friendly smile on his face.