"Hello, I'm Doctor Hayden," the woman says. She takes my hand and shakes it. Firm grip. Is that a good or bad sign?
"I'm Jupiter," I stutter.
"Ohh, what a pretty name. Please, take a seat." She points at two bright yellow chairs on one side of a desk. She sits on the other side, a notepad resting on her lap, putting on and off the lid of a pencil. Click, click, click.
I sit down in one of yellow chairs and reach for the stress toy in a pocket to my cargo pants. The collar of my jumper suddenly seems to strangle me. I wish it had had buttons or a zip or something I could use to loosen it up.
"Ah, I see you have a stress toy," Doctor Hayden says. "That's very good. Well done".
"Thanks."
"So your mother tells you that you have a phobia for airplanes?"
"Yes, that's correct."
"Do you want to tell me about it?"
Nope. "I guess. That's why I'm here, right?"
"Well, we can talk about something else if you'd prefer that."
"I've never been in an airplane."
She starts to take notes and my heartbeat goes up until it feels like my heart is trying to escape from my chest. I look down at the stress toy. I think I might break it today. Last week, I had to stitch it together after a school presentation about the Ebola virus.
"I read an article a couple of years ago, like three or two or something, about this airplane crash and got really scared. So I started to do some research."
"On airplanes?"
"On airplane accidents, on airplane motors, on that kind of stuff. Seriously, you could ask me anything about it."
"That's not my job."
"Yeah, I know but... I'm just saying."
This isn't exactly going that well. I check the time. Five minutes down. Forty to go. This is going to be worse than last week's presentation. This is going to be worse than coming home to an interrogation about my school day. This is going to be worse than parents' day. This is going to be worse than anything that's ever happened in my life.
Except the thing that hasn't happened yet, but is for sure going to top everything on the list.
YOU ARE READING
Airplane
Teen FictionJupiter has always known that airplanes would be her death. But it isn't until she gets on one to Tokyo that it starts. She starts to have anxiety attacks every now and then, waking up with a knot in her stomach and falling asleep crying. "What if...
