The maid of honour

Chapter 1

I turn to Andrew and quietly say "When you're scared, just hold my hand and squeeze it. Okay?" He gulps, nods his head with understanding and faces forward. Clutching on the armrest for dear life.

Then I remember, I brought my noise cancelling headphones! I can lend them to him for the ride and maybe it might be less scary for him. I bend down to grab my handbag that's placed under the seat in front of me and grab my headphones.

I turn once more to Andrew and tap him on the shoulder. I explain to him that I brought noise cancelling headphones and that he could wear them for the flight to Canada. I can see glimmer of hope in his eyes. He gingerly takes my headphones and puts them on his head. He instantly looked relaxed.

One of the air stewardess' went walking by and asked for Andrew to take off his headphones for the beginning of the flight. He didn't seem to hear her, so I explain to her; how he's deathly afraid of flights and I offered to give him my noise cancelling headphones. I showed her that they are not plugged into any device and I begin to tell her that the only reason we ended up on a flight in the first place is due to a last minute wedding. I didn't want to go into too much detail about it, since the lady on the other aisle was eyeing myself and Andrew up.

Thankfully she said that it's okay as long as he doesn't plug them into his phone or anything along those lines.

When she walked away I took out some sticky notes that I kept in my bag and a blunt pencil.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" I scribble onto the yellow sticky note.

"I'm not too sure... I'm still feeling quite nervous. What if I get sick?" He writes on the back.

I rip another sticky note and write back to him
'Once we are in the air we can watch some Netflix episodes I downloaded together. I wasn't sure what you like so I have a few shows on my iPad. I've got'-

I flip the sticky note.

' Sherlock, That 70's show, Rick and Morty and inside no. 9'

I pass him a separate sticky note so he can respond but instead he looks me in the eyes and circles Sherlock. I nod to him to tell him okay.

When the plane started moving I give him my right hand to hold and he interlocks his fingers with mine and gives my hand a gentle squeeze. I look at our hands that are resting on the arm rest in between our seats, averting my eyes to his face only to catch him staring at me. We hold eye contact for a few seconds before I look out the window. His eyes burned in my memory. The blazing light blue eyes staring right through my soul.

Even with just a few days before the wedding still I don't understand how I was chosen for maid of honour, I'm so grateful but I'm terrified that I'll mess up! I mean it's my best friends big day! When the couple asked me to be maid of honour they were so discreet about details so I don't even know who the best man is...

A couple rows ahead of us I can see the top of Ryan's hair. He's sitting with Sasha and they look to be talking animatedly to each other. Back when we were teens he had the biggest crush on Sasha it's nice to finally see them together...

This massive reunion of our old friend group makes me realise how far they have gotten in life- most of them all have stable jobs and are settled down! Its nostalgic seeing everyones faces again, but it just digs the pit of insecurities that were building up the past few years.. I am not as well off as everyone else- they are all getting married and I still stumble around bars every so often..

As I drifted deep into thought the small light above us turned on, snapping me out of my train of thought.

I turn to Andrew and tap him on the shoulder. He lifts his head to look at me and I notice how his brown locks fall over his face oh so slightly, he had matured really well since I last saw him- he looks more put together now. It's hard to find a flaw about him nowadays, when we were younger he was really shy and was known for his terrible acne. His face has become a lot clearer for him- I wonder how he did it..

I pick up the pen with my left hand and write
'Would you like to watch Sherlock now? Or would you like to play a game to pass the time? ... considering we have five hours to kill :)'
I pass him the note noticing how our hands are still tangled together.

he grabs the pencil from my small economy table and writes back,
"let's play a game! What options do we have?"

'tbh any game you can think of, I brought a pack of cards and uno, but we could also make fortune tellers... the possibilities are endless! :)'

He reads the note over my shoulder and with his free hand he rips a sticky note and simply writes:

"Want to play uno then?"

'Okay!'