If I had been asked several months ago how I would picture my close future, I would have said that I saw myself studying for my senior year, getting ready for college and to build a new life.
I never imagined that I'd find myself standing in the middle of a destroyed, chaotic airport, with the certainty of the love of my life's death laid in front of my eyes.
***
“Okay, listen, I’ll start again: ‘Harry, I’m sorry for making you leave. You did lie to me this whole time though and you’re an asshole. But I love you too’. How does that sound?”
The exasperated taxi driver shot me the thousandth death glare, parking the car in the huge parking lot I had visited not too long ago. When I understood that all he would do was stare at me judging and not help me with my extraordinary speech, I muttered an awkward “right” under my breath and paid him, before jumping out of the car. It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to look around, acknowledging the busy parking lot full of people who were either leaving, or returning, or waiting for someone and how everyone had an exact reason for being here. Then I started running for my life.
As I had just mentioned, cars were parked everywhere, making it quite a difficult task for the poor driver to drop me off closer to the entrance in spite of the numerous times I had urged him to hurry, so he left me damn far away. So I ran for dear life on my high heels, still wearing my quite inappropriate for this time of the year blue dress, hoping with all my heart that I wasn’t too late.
Eventually, when I entered the huge building, I was completely left out of breath. But I kept running, too adrenaline-fueled to stop and look at the departures panel, rushing to the closest desk I spotted and asking as I gasped for air.
“C-can you tell m-me, “ deep breath, “where d-do passengers,” deep breath, ”w-wait to get on...on…the flight to…um”
This time, the stuttering wasn’t cased by my lungs’ incapability of getting air into my system. Where on earth din Harry go, tough? Obviously, I had to freaking go on a crazy race of getting here without even thinking of asking where exactly I was supposed to look. Okay, April, remember. The boys left from the town they were in when they had they last concert. Something starting with a P? Was it an S? It sounded strange, like…like this…
“SANKT PETERSBURG!” I exclaimed, proud of myself. The woman behind the desk didn’t quite seem as impressed as I was, giving me a look like she was wondering if I had lost it. I couldn’t blame her though - if a desperate girl with messed up hair, wearing an elegant dress and a psychotic smile as she breathed like some kind of dragon with asthma, I would have intended to send her to the loony bin as soon as possible.
Instead, she told me with a bored voice,
“If you mean the boarding area for the flight to Sankt Petersburg, it’s that way,” she said, pointing to her right.
“Thank y—“ I began, half having already moved from the desk, when she spoke again,
“But boarding was over 15 minutes ago and the plane is about to take off.”
Imagine myself one foot in front of the other, stopped in mid-air, set to walk in the direction earlier pointed by the woman, when I stopped and took a few steps back and looked at her like she was the crazy one.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, my wrecked nerves being on the verge of turning into a hysterical laugh.
“Do I look like I am kidding?” she asked with the most monotone facial expression I had ever seen.
My shoulders dropped weakly and I slowly dragged my feet to the huge window displaying the illuminated runway, trying to guess which one it was. Yeah, she definitely didn’t look like she was kidding. And now, since breaking down in the middle of the airport wasn’t the answer, all I had left to do was assuming which was the plane that would take the love of my life away from me.
Then I saw it; at first, it moved slowly, then faster and faster, preparing to take off. And when it eventually detached from the ground, a dry laugh escaped my lips, which soon turned into that psychotic fit of laughter I had mentioned earlier. That was it. I was too late.
I watched the plane as I was laughing and the realization that I had to go back to my life knowing I had missed my chance at happiness hit me. But then, my eyes narrowed slightly, when I noticed an orange light flickering right under one of the wings. The fake laugh was still rolling out of my mouth as the light got more intense and I got even more confused. The last thing I heard come from me was a breathless gasp. Then, the explosion happened, and everything started moving in slow motion.
The plane descended to the ground slower that it should have. The orange light lazily became red when it crashed at an incredibly low pace. A random man yelled “get down” before tackling me to the ground, and I fell so softly that I thought it wouldn’t hurt. It really didn’t, because compared to the deafening sound of windows breaking, alarms screaming and pieces of glass stabbing my back, my arms, my legs, it was nothing. And when people’s terrified cries began, my first thought was “haven’t I had enough yelling for a day?”
I didn’t know for how long I stood on the floor, even though people were running around desperately and pretty much stepping on me, so I stood on my bruised knees, then slowly back on my feet and I looked at the scenery. It was dark, but a red glow flickered enough for me to catch sight of the horrifying situation. It felt like hell’s gates had opened, as humans pointlessly tried to escape it, covered in blood and terror.
When my brain started functioning again, question arose in my mind. What happened? Why was I there? Surprisingly, the only answer came before anything else; Harry.
The realization suddenly hit me, causing my body to lose its balance and take a few steps back. As I did that, one my heels stumbled upon something and I fell on my back - not on an unfortunate person, but through the frame where God knows how long ago the window had been and on the cold, hard concrete. Although I hadn’t fallen from higher than a metre or two, it still hurt as hell, especially on my bare shoulders covered in broken glass.
With my body shaking, I crawled by the wall and leaned my head against it, hoping that it was cold enough to soothe my aching back as I closed my eyes. I could still hear the screams, but here everything was more silent and… calmer. There were people running outside too and mostly towards the huge fire I barely acknowledged, but it felt like the world had lowered its volume. I opened my mouth and took a breath of the cold, winter air, which scratched my burning throat, but I did it again. And again. I soon understood that the shaking wasn’t only caused by the shock, but also by the extremely low temperature of the night.
Was this even happening, or was it just a really bad nightmare? I assumed both. But it couldn’t be real, obviously. There was no way that the plane Harry was on had just crashed, of course not, because that would mean everything was my fault. Well, not the whole crashing thing, but him leaving after I had made it crystal clear that I wanted to have nothing to do with him.
‘But you knew he was with Melanie, you couldn’t have known,’ a tiny voice said.
‘Oh, come on, I’m not a complete idiot. I saw the way he was looking at me, but I didn’t want to admit to myself what it meant because I was scared I was wrong. If I hadn’t tried to make him suffer as much as he made me and just listened to him, he would have been there at the party when he played that recorded interview for me ,’ I feverishly contradicted the voice, proud of my arguments.
‘It’s not your fault,’ it said weakly, unable to compete with my judgments, so I continued,
"He could have told me that he loved me in person. I could have told him I loved him in person. Now all I have left is a recording of that, because he is dead.”
Dead
It was funny, actually, so a weak laugh escaped my mouth, in the middle of the people running past me, crying and screaming in terror and despair. Everything seemed so unreal that I decided it was definitely funny, so I started laughing really heard again, until I couldn't breathe and my legs were shaking so much that they gave up and I fell on the ground, gasping for air. Suddenly, a man came to me, placing a hand gently on my shoulder and asking if I needed medical assistance, but I shook it off so violently that I even surprised myself.
"No, get away from me!" I screamed, half sobbing, half sounding like being strangled.
"It's alright, miss, I won't hurt you." the man said softly, and when I turned to look at him I saw that he was wearing a uniform. Police department? Fireman? I didn't bother to try and figure it out since my vision was too blurry because of the warm water flowing out of my eyes and down my cheeks.
"What do you want." I tried to ask, but it ended up like a statement choked with tears.
"I need to know a few things, miss. Do you think you could answer some questions?"
My whole body was shaking, still sitting on the ground. All I did was stare blankly in front of me, so when he saw that I wouldn’t speak, he helped me stand up. I faltered, noticing that one of my heels was missing. I took it off calmly, shaking off the arm holding me tightly so I could walk freely. The yard was now full of ambulances, police cars, television and curious people. How long did I stay there alone?
People I assumed were paramedics shielded me from the reporters shouting questions at me, while pleading me to let them put me on a stretcher, which I wouldn’t accept. It seemed like I had walked a mile before getting to an ambulance, making me sit down as they gasped in shock at something from my back, or shoulders, or arms, whatever. As I stared at nothing in particular, not flinching at the sharp pain I suddenly felt when they began treating my wounds, I saw a dress I recognized with the corner of my eyes. Before I had the chance to look up, I was embraced in a tight hug, but I didn’t return it until moments later, even then weakly. The paramedics shouted in protest, even so neither of us cared. I stood up, somehow noticing a blond, broken lad, a black-haired shocked one and someone whose blue eyes glimmered in tears, as strands of ruffled brown hair fell on his face. They were all starring at me. They knew it was my fault. They knew. They knew, they knew, I repeated frantically in my head.
So I stepped away from the embrace. finally speaking, my voice dry and croaked pleading for a second alone so I could gather my thoughts. I walked behind the ambulance and past some police cars. I made my way through crowds of people, until they rarefied and I was sure I as out of sight.
Then, as broken, wounded and dizzy I was, I started running.
~
January 11th, happy birthday to me and April yay