Kenya
Cady's birthday had come and gone, but one present was still awaiting use: three tickets to Kenya. Her parents had given her them, so she and two friends could go there for a week to visit Cady's old life. Cady had obviously chosen Janis and Damian to take with her.
~•~
The day rolled around relatively quickly, and at 4 in the morning on the 28th of July, Janis was being shaken awake by her girlfriend, who was by the looks of things already dressed and ready to go.
"Okay okay I'm getting up." She groaned, stretching her arms out wide. She swung her legs out of bed and stood up, to then flop to the floor dramatically.
"I am afraid that my legs have turned to jello. Only sleep can cure jello legs." She sighed. Cady giggled, pulling her up.
"C'mon, get dressed, we're gonna miss our flight!" She said happily, running to wake up Damian. Janis trudged to the closet and got out some shorts, a t-shirt and a denim jacket, plus some tights and her combat boots. She dressed herself and walked to the bathroom to finish getting ready.
Around half an hour later they were all ready to leave.
"Everyone got their suitcases? Good, Damian before you ask we can get breakfast at the airport, right, let's go catch a plane!"
They all clambered into the back of a taxi, and told the driver where they were headed.
"The drivers lowkey hot though." Damian whispered to them, causing them to laugh quietly amongst themselves.
Halfway through the ride, Janis spoke up.
"I figure I should probably let you both know that I have quite severe aerophobia, or fear of air travel, so I wrote a little book on how to deal with my anxiety on a plane." She said, handing them a small book. Cady opened it and began to read.
"I'll try and help, I'm not the best at comforting people though." Cady said after finishing the book.
"It's fine, if you're just there for me is fine." Janis said, resting her head on Cady's shoulder.
"Alright, here you are." The driver announced, and sure enough, they looked out of the window at the huge airport in front of them. They all climbed out of the car and Damian payed the driver. He got back his change and he was looking through it when he saw a small slip of paper with a number on it, and the words call me written underneath.
"Ladies, I got his number!" He announced, and they all started to laugh at Damian's excitement.
They got some trollies and put their suitcases and carry on bags on them, and began walking towards the escalator. Once they were on the escalator, Janis reached for Cady's hand as she felt fear bubble up inside her. A tear slipped down her cheek.
"Babe, it's okay, you'll be fine." Cady reassured her, wiping her tear away and wrapping an arm over her girlfriends shoulders. They then got off the escalator and walked to the check in area. The queue seemed a few miles long.
"Ergh, really! We have to wait in this queue! It's going to take hours to get to the front!" Damian moaned.
"Oh don't be such a baby, these queues end up going quite quickly, and besides, this isn't even out queue, ours is that relatively short one over there." Cady said, pointing to the correct queue. The trio walked towards it and stood behind a family of four, a mother, father and two daughters. The older of the daughters had silent tears falling down her cheeks. Janis felt sympathy for this girl.
"Are you okay?" She asked her kindly. The girl shook her head. "Aerophobia?" She girl nodded. "Same here. It's fine, I understand how you feel. Just don't stress yourself about it okay?" The girl smiled at Janis and wiped her tears away.
"Oli, come on!" The girls mom said from the front of the queue. The girl ran to her parents, looking back at Janis and thanking her for talking to her.
"You did a good thing." Cady said sweetly, standing on her toes to kiss Janis. Then they got to the front of the queue.
~ y'all don't need to read the whole security thing~
Once through security, they decided to find a café to sit in. They found a small one that looked really cosy and found a booth to sit in. Damian and Janis ordered coffees whereas Cady ordered a tea and a cake.
Whilst they ate, Cady talked about the things they could do in Kenya.
"We can ride elephants! And ooo! We can go herping, and look for snakes, and we can swim in the sea, and go to the market, and this is going to be so fun!"
Damian was debating whether to text the driver dude.
"Should I do it? You know what, I'm gonna do it." So he typed the number into his phone and sent a text.
Damian: hey, it's me, the guy who you gave your number to who you gave a lift to the airport earlier. The names Damian by the way.
And so they all waited, anxiously anticipating a reply, before they heard a
Ping
And they all scrambled to look at his phone.
Driver: hey Damian, my names Harry. I gave you my number cause I think you're kinda cute. Honestly I'm really hoping you're gay right now!
Damian; yeah dude I'm really gay, you?
Harry: Pansexual. But still gay as shit.
Damian: ha mood
"I think Damian likes him!" Cady said, and both her and Janis went ooo and mocked him.
"Oh shut up both of you, I don't mock you two, and y'all are kissing every five seconds anyways." He snapped back. That shut them up. Then they heard an announcement that their flight was boarding, so they payed for their food and drink, grabbed their bags and walked off to the gate.
"Gate 67 ... this way!" Cady said, pointing to a sign that had the numbers 67 printed largely on it.
"Last toilet break before we board, anyone need to go?" She asked as they walked past a toilet block. They all went to be safe. Then finally they arrived at the gates.
"May I see your passports and boarding passes please?" The lady at the desk asked. Cady placed them all in front of her.
"All good. Enjoy your flight." The lady said, handing their passports and passes back to them. The trio began to walk down that tunnel that connects the plane to the airport, both Damian and Cady holding Janis' hands because she was wobbling on her feet a little due to fear. The door to the plane was in front of them when Janis burst into tears, trying to run back to the airport. Cady just hugged her ran her fingers through her hair.
"It's going to be okay, babe." She whispered into her ear, holding her hand as Damian showed the flight attendant the boarding passes. We were on seats 14A, 14B and 14C. Whilst walking down the aisle, so many people snickered at Janis' fear, in reply to which Cady shot daggers at them with her eyes. That made them look away. Once at the seats, Cady sat in the window, Damian in the aisle and Janis in the middle of the two.
Once she sat down, Janis immediately did up her seatbelt, and dig in her bag for headphones. She then put on some girl in red relatively quiet, just as a comfort until takeoff.
During the safety speech, Damian imitated the motions with his hands, making both Cady and Janis giggle. And then the plane began to taxi. The moment it started moving, Janis buried her head into Cady's shoulder.
"Baby, it's just taxiing. It's not taking off just yet." She said sweetly, pushing Janis back to sit upright. She then grabbed both her girlfriend and best friends hands and squeezed them tight.
"Thanks for being her for m-" she began before the plane started to speed down the runway. She immediately buried her head into the armrest and felt herself begin to have a panic attack. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she could hardly breath, she tried counting to 40 like her Nanny had showed her once before, but the panic attack had turned her non-verbal. Once the planes wheels lifted off the ground, she slowly sat up, clutching her stomach to prevent nausea from the turbulence.
"Try and focus on your breathing for me okay Jan." Damian said, breathing in sync with Janis. Cady did the same. Eventually Janis calmed down, and sat up straight.
"Thanks for helping me guys." She said with a smile, getting out her phone. "Now, smile for Instagram."
She took a picture of the 3 of them, and put her phone back in her pocket. She then rested her head on Cady's shoulder and fell asleep.
~•~
She was shaken awake by Damian.
"Jan, we're about to land." He spoke softly. She shot up, her face growing pale. "Not a fan of landing huh?"
Jan shook her head, and buried it into Cady's shirt. Then the plane began its descent.
She felt a small thump underneath her and sat up. One look out the window told her that the plane had touched down. She smiled up and Cady, who kissed her softly.
"You did so well babe." She said quietly, sitting up and putting her phone into her bag.
~•~
Once they had gathered their bags, and each of them in turn had ridden the trolleys, they got a taxi to the small huts they were going to be staying in.
The hut had a small kitchen / living room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a toilet. Damian took the single bed room and Cady and Janis took the room with the double bed. They unpacked their things and all met in the living room, collapsing onto the couch.
"Let's watch IT." Damian said, springing up and grabbing the DVD he had bought.
"Caddie hates horror movies Damian. Let's watch vines on YouTube." Janis offered, getting her iPad out of her backpack. They stayed up until 2 am watching vines, before they decided to call it a night and go to sleep.
This is gonna be minimum 2 parts, maybe 3 if I decide to write all 7 days they spent there.
Also, I have Aerophobia like Janis, so I knew exactly how to write her in this chapter. The fear sucks because I can't look forward to holidays and can't go on a lot of school trips because my parents aren't there to comfort me.
Anyways, enough chit chat, I need to say this:
Black lives matter
Police brutality is real
White privilege is real
Needed to be said
Kay baii
Published 29th May 2020, 14:16
Word count, 1824