“Ugh, I so do not want to do this.” I mumbled, eyeing the small plane in front of us. Of course, it was the West’s private jet, would we travel any other way? But the thing is that I hate flying. It’s not the actual flying part that bugs me, it’s the staying still in one seat for so long that really kills me. And this flight is going to be fourteen hours. Yes, you heard right, fourteen hours sitting in one spot, doing nothing. All I had was a laptop, a notebook, and some ear buds.

“If you’re so against it, then you can stay here. We’ll think about you when we’re laying in the sun on the peaceful Australian beach.” Elle smirked, throwing her bag over her shoulder and walking ahead of me towards the jet.

There were a total of eleven people going on this trip- Ryder, Andy, Kale, Jackson, Holly, Brendon, Jarrod, Isaac, Elle, Tommy, and me. And I was the last person on the claustrophobic plane.

The good thing about this flight, however, was the amazing interior that I’ve never seen. Yes, in my years of being friends with the Wests, I’ve never used their private jet before today.

Right when you walked in the door, there was a long couch to the right and two large, cozy-looking seats across the aisle, facing each other. At the back of the plane, there was a cluster of the same chairs, two on each side and facing each other. Then, behind that there was another four-seat cluster. On the back wall, there was a door that I was told lead to a small bedroom with a queen sized bed inside. It was a pretty large plane for being private. And apparently, there’s Wi-Fi on this plane, at least, that’s what Ryder had told me yesterday, which I was very excited to learn. That makes this flight just a little bit more bearable.

Once we were all inside, I ended up in the middle of the plane in one of the chairs and two seats across from me were occupied by Tommy and Andy, but the one beside me was empty. Behind me, Ryder, Jackson, and the twins were sitting in the four seats and in front of me, Isaac and Elle were sitting together on the couch and Holly and Kale were sitting across from each other in the other two seats.

The pilot did his little speech, telling us that we had to be buckled up for takeoff and that we can’t use the table things for the first few minutes either. The speech that all pilots make before a flight that also covered all of the ‘in case of emergency’ stuff as well.

When the speech was over, there was a small lapse of time before anybody started to talk, and then there was a large, random gasp as we started to start speeding down the runway.

“Tommy!” Elle gasped.

“Yeah…?” Tommy replied, turning around in his seat to face Elle who was looking at him with bugged out eyes, like she was about to tell him her dying wish or something.

“Your birthday!” She erupted. “We haven’t planned your birthday yet and isn’t it next week?!”

Tommy nodded calmly, but when Elle said that, it reminded me that we haven’t planned his birthday yet, and it was next week.

“Yeah, I wasn’t planning on doing anything this year.” Tommy shrugged.

“You’re kidding, right?” I snorted. “Birthdays are like, our thing.” I told him, nudging towards Holly. For most birthdays of people we’re close to, me and Holly are usually the ones running the show along with Andy and Elle, I don’t know if it’s a girl thing or if we’re just weird like that, but I love birthdays and I love the partying that comes with it whether it’s innocent, open presents and eat cake, or if it’s a dirty dancing and spike the cake. Both types of parties are fun and if there’s a birthday, I can guarantee you that it won’t go unnoticed, not around here.

“Um, no, I wasn’t kidding.” Tommy chuckled. “But I’m not going to stop you guys from doing whatever you guys want to plan.”

“Oh, like you could stop us if you tried.” Andy smirked innocently beside him. “I already have the best idea ever, but I’ll tell you guys about it when we land.”

“Fine, but we do need to start thinking presents.” Holly chirped. “I totally spaced, so you’re going to have to deal with some cheesy Australian souvenir. Besides, my wedding present is awesome and that should make up for it.”

“Okay, but you don’t have to get me anything.” Tommy insisted. “I’m turning twenty-two, not two.”

“Everyone needs birthday presents.” I told him, rolling my eyes. “It’s like… breathing air.”

“Well, you would say that, you’re more dramatic than Paris Hilton.” Ryder chuckled, rolling his eyes.

“Am not!” I argued, but it was probably true, I tended to be a bit dramatic sometimes. Like when Brendon didn’t call on our anniversary and I assumed that he’d met another girl and fled to the Caribbean to get married to the girl and have five kids all with rhyming names and matching outfits. Turns out, he was cramming for exams and just forgot until the next day to call, and he shipped flowers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you are now free to move around the cabin.” The pilot spoke through the speakers before anybody could continue the argument.

“Finally!” Andy chirped, taking Tommy’s hand and dragging him out of his seat and then through the small aisle. They both hurriedly moved into the bedroom in the back and it was easy to assume what they were doing. Let me give you a hint: it rhymes with bearly irthday pex.  And it’s not swirly Earth Day decks.

I rolled my eyes at them, even though nobody could see it, and pulled out my laptop, opening it up and turning it on. Luckily, Ryder was right about the Wi-Fi, which I didn’t know was even possible. How does a plane even have Wi-Fi?  I don’t understand technology at all.

I stuffed my ear buds into my ears and started playing one of my iTunes playlists- this one was made up of Taylor Swift, Pierce The Veil, Of Mice And Men, and Katy Perry.

I was wearing short black Victoria Secret shorts with white letters spelling Pink on the butt and a light pink sweater with sneakers, so I was cozy and when I sat criss cross with my laptop on my lap, I began reading Divergent, which is one of my favorite books ever and I was reading it for the third time. I have a paper copy of it, but I’d put it in my suitcase when I was packing. Luckily, I also bought it in the Apple Store, so it was saved on my computer.

I was reading for a really long time without anything more than breathing and the occasional stretch of my legs and I think I went through my whole playlist at least twice. I wish that meant that we’d be landing soon, but we were on our way across the world, which meant that we still had eleven hours to go when I looked at the clock again.

With that realization, I decided to take a break from reading and opened up a Firefox tab to check my email and then Twitter. I’m not much of a Twitter person- I don’t really understand it, but I get on occasionally. Like when I’m dead bored on a fourteen hour flight.

I signed into my Yahoo account and was surprised to see that I actually had an email. Who emails anymore? Oh, my parents. I recognized the email address.

Letting out a long, annoyed sigh, I opened up the message, preparing for some stupid nag-athon about what a disappointment I was.

Dear Olivia,

Why aren’t you answering your phone? I need to get ahold of you and you aren’t answering your phone. What if something happened to me or your father and you wouldn’t know because you didn’t answer your phone? There aren’t computers to email from in Heaven, Olivia.

Okay, so I found that last part kinda funny, so I let out a soft snicker. I’ll spare you the rest of that paragraph as she continued to nag me for another ten sentences about how horrible it was that my phone was turned off. Well, it was in airplane mode. Because I’m on an airplane, but she doesn’t know that, so I’ll have to make up some excuse, like I waterlogged it or something. For being a genius bitch, my mother can be really stupid and gullible sometimes. Or all the time.

Anyway, I was going to call you to let you know that I’m not happy with the fact that you did not enroll in any summer classes, and I will not tolerate this “summer break” that you’re planning. So, I’ve given you some classes that you can take during the summer and they start next week, plus they accept late comers. Sign up for some of those classes, you can’t just take a break from school, it’s stupid. I expect you to mail me some of your school work so that I know that you took the classes.

Sincerely,
Carol Cross

I rolled my eyes at that. Like hell I was going to take summer classes. Maybe I should just tell her that I’m halfway to Australia by now and classes just aren’t an option. I wish I could see her face if I ever did tell her that I was in Australia. She’d have a seizure right on the spot, my dad too. They believe that airplanes are a devils trap and everyone who flies on one is bound to die. Even when I came to live in LA with Holly, I had told them that we were road tripping there instead of flying. Yeah, well we road tripped to the Minnesota airport. But I don’t see how driving across the country is any safer than flying there, but my parents really have no logic at all.

Just out of curiosity, I scanned through the types of classes that my mother had listed that I could take. Most of them were math- which wasn’t my best subject by far, but some of them were history and there were a few English ones, including a poetry class. I wouldn’t mind taking a poetry class… during the fall or spring semester. I’m more of an English person, but math and science, I detest.

I didn’t know what to send back, so I just exited out of Yahoo, deciding not to reply at all and when she really wanted to talk to me, she’ll just call again and I’ll deal with her then. Or better yet, my dad will call. He’s harsher than my mom, believe it or not.

After I’d closed out of Yahoo, I scrolled down my unused Tumblr- another website that I don’t understand- and then an idea started to bubble in my head. With a grin on my face, I slid my laptop to the floor beside me, safe from where anybody would walk, and pulled out my notebook and pencil. I put my heals on the seat and rested the notebook on my knees, facing me with a blank piece of notebook paper as I began writing.

I was about halfway done with what I was writing when I felt one of my ear buds get pulled out of my ear. I jumped slightly, but made no sound, much to my relief, and turned to see Jackson sitting in the seat beside me that was once vacant.

“What?” I asked softly, waiting for him to tell me why he’d switched spots.

“You’re the only other person awake and I’m bored.” He told me sheepishly.

I looked up to see that he was right- everyone else on the plane was asleep. Well, maybe Tommy and Andy weren’t, but I wasn’t about to go into that bedroom to find out.

“So I’m your last resort?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

“No.” He grinned innocently. “But you look bored too. Whatcha doing?” He asked.

“I’m writing.” I chuckled, motioning towards the notebook on my lap.

“Can I read it?” Jackson asked curiously.

“If you want to.” I said slowly. “I’m no Dr. Seuss, though.”

He smirked as he took the notebook into his hands and started reading the poem that I was writing.

I don’t like you,
you smell like feet.
And if you swallowed a rock,
I think that sounds sweet.

Your mouth is too big,
and you are a stupid person.
And I think you beat up puppies,
and kill things without reason.

I think it’d be really cool,
if you were shunned to a bad place.
You always say stuff about me,
but maybe YOU’RE the disgrace.

I don’t like you,
your voice breaks glass.

“That’s all I got.” I told him. “What rhymes with glass?”

“How about, ‘I wish you were a turtle, you’re a pain in my ass.’ I think it has a ring to it.” Jackson laughed softly.

That made me laugh, but I made sure to keep quiet for the sake of all the sleeping people around us. “I like that.”

“Are you mad at somebody or something?” Jackson asked as I wrote down the two lines in the poem that I was writing.

“My mom wants me to take a poetry class this summer and she wants me to send her the work that I do in class.” I explained wryly.

“And you’re going to send her this?” He asked with raised eyebrows.

I laughed again. “Yeah, right.”

“Then why are you writing it?” He asked in confusion.

I shrugged. “I can dream.”

“I think you should send it to her.” He spoke. “It’d be pretty funny.”

“Are you serious?” I scoffed. “They’d rip me a new one if either one of my parents ever read this. I’d be dead within an hour.”

“Okay, here’s a plan. You change your phone number, delete your email, and then you send them that lovely poem. Stand up to them for once.” He suggested.

“I do stand up to them.” I protested. “If I was a limp noodle, I’d be in Minnesota studying medical law and how to grow a magic horn.”

“What?” He asked in confusion.

“Nothing.” I sighed. “The point is- I do stand up to them, but this would be too much.”

“How?” Jackson asked curiously.

I thought for a minute before coming up with a good answer. “I still love them, they’re my parents, Jackson. Would you ever send something like this to your dad?”

“No, but my dad is a lot different than your dad.” He rebutted.

“It’s still the same concept, I guess.” I muttered. “Bottom line is that this is for our eyes only and maybe when they’re on their death bed, I will read this to them or bury it with my mom in her coffin that way it will be forever with her.”

“Okay then.” Jackson sang. “But if you ever decide to send it, just make sure to change your phone number.”

“Got it.” I chuckled, opening the notebook up to a blank sheet of paper. “Do you want to play hang man?”

“I guess, we don’t have anything else better to do.”

“That’s the spirit.” I grinned, writing out nine dashes beside each other and then the lines that created the hang man post.

Jackson looked at it for a few moments before he guessed. “Australia.”

“How’d you know?!” I wailed in an upset whisper. “That was so good.”

“That wasn’t good, that was probably the most obvious thing I could have thought of.” He laughed softly. “My turn.”

I handed him the notebook and watched as he wrote down the dashes for his word under where mine were. When he handed it back to me, I saw that it was three words. The first one was a one letter word, the second was four letters, and the third one was three. Like this:

_  _ _ _ _  _ _ _

“Is it…” I trailed off, trying to figure out what it was saying.

“Guess letters first, Lib.” Jackson laughed. “That’s how you play.”

“Well, you didn’t.” I huffed.

“I’m better than you at this game.” He said smugly.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Fine then, I guess the letter I.” I told him, since  the one-letter word was either an I or an A and when he wrote down the I above the first dash, I knew that I was right.

“Yes!” I cheered. “Okay, I guess… ­­an H?”

“Nope.” He chirped, eagerly drawing the head of my poor man. He was probably framed for whatever he was being hung for. He didn’t deserve this.

“Okay, well it’s I blank blank. So you blank blank. That is helpful.” I said. “How about L?”

Jackson nodded. “There is an L.” He said, writing an O in the second space of the second word, so it was now:

I  l_ _ _  _ _ _

“So it’s either like or love, am I right?” I asked.

He shrugged with a smirk. “I can’t tell you, that’d be cheating.”

“Okay, well I’ll get it on my own then.” I huffed, looking at the last word that only had three letters in it. I was making this way too hard.

And ten minutes later, I had gotten nowhere, except for my person, who I’d named Joe, was about to die. He only had his face and one leg left and then he was a goner.

But I did have the middle word. It was “I Love _ _ _” and I’d exhausted almost the whole alphabet.

“Okay, the only vowel I haven’t tried is U.” I told him. “So U?”

He nodded. “Well, that’s something.” He muttered teasingly as he wrote a U in the middle letter.

The only letters I had left to choose from were the stupid letters that nobody ever uses like Z, W, X things like that and a few others that I haven’t tried either.

“Okay, M, I guess.” I guessed.

Again, he nodded and I grinned. I was getting there. He wrote the M in the last letter. Sum… tum… rum…

“Is it ‘I love rum’?” I asked Jackson.

He smirked and shook his head. “Nope, and you’re one letter away from hanging Joe.” He told me, drawing the second leg on Joe’s body.

“Oh, hang in there, Joe. And I have two letters, mister. You have to draw the hair, too.” I told him.

“Hair doesn’t count.” Jackson said, shaking his head.

“Hey, if Joe is going to die, then he is going down in style.” I huffed.

“Okay then, fine. But I’m drawing it with the face, so you still only have one letter.” He said.

“It’s like you want to kill him.” I muttered. “You sicken me.”

“Yeah, right.” Jackson snorted. “You love me.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” I chirped sarcastically as I continued to go through the alphabet and words that ended in UM. “Hey, Jackson?” I asked, looking at the paper.

“Yeah?”

“Does that say ‘I love bum’?” I asked, realizing B was the last option.

The way he burst into laughter made me think that I was right. “It took you long enough.” He laughed quietly. “Get it? Because bum is Australian for ass.”

“I get it.” I chuckled. “I just didn’t think you’d be so pervy.”

“Well, it was originally supposed to say something else.” He admitted.

“What was it supposed to be?” I asked curiously.

“I love pie.” He told me sheepishly. “But in the beginning, I forgot to put the I there, so I had to change it and bum seemed appropriate.”

“You’re so idiotic.” I laughed softly.

“But you’re laughing.” He noted. “Which means that you think I’m hilarious.”

“That’s absolutely not what my laughter implies.” I told him. “But at least Joe is safe.”

“Yeah, okay. Let’s play something else.” Jackson suggested.

“Or we can watch a movie, I have Netflix.”

“What movie do you think that we could possibly agree on?” Jackson asked with raised eyebrows.

“Jackass?” I asked. “Everybody loves Jackass, Stevo is hilarious.”

“Yeah, he’s a cool guy.” Jackson shrugged.

“Okay, do not even do that.” I told him with a pointed look.

“Do what?” He asked me with a small smirk.

“Do not go all celebrity on me. ‘Oh, hi. I’m Jackson Thorne and I’m famous and everybody loves me and I’m best friends with every famous person you’ve ever even dreamed about and I’ve had dinner with Johnny Depp.’ Don’t do that, it’s not fair.” I huffed.

“I’m sorry.” He chuckled. “Let’s watch Jackass, then.”

“Good.” I said with a smile, picking my laptop up and sitting it on my lap so that I could find one of the Jackass movies. I settled on the first one because I don’t think I’ve seen that one before and placed it on the vacant chairs across from me and Jackson so that we could both see the screen and turned the volume down so that we could hear it but it wouldn’t wake anybody up.

“Johnny Knoxville is a genius.” I said with a smile.

“I thought you just said Stevo was your favorite.” Jackson commented.

“No, I said Stevo is hilarious. Bam is my favorite, he’s so adorable.”

“You’re confusing.” He mumbled.

I didn’t answer, instead, we both stayed quiet and we watched the movie. I was laughing most of the time, and when I wasn’t laughing, I was cringing and hiding my face in my hands to hide from the gruesome bits that I couldn’t handle. I even saw Jackson cringe a few times when they did some stunts with their man parts.

When the movie was over, there was still nobody awake. I went to sit up, but before I could, I realized the position that I was in- I was basically curled into Jackson’s side with my head on his shoulder and I felt his head resting on top of mine with his arm wrapped around my waist.

He must be sleeping. I thought to myself, knowing that he wouldn’t have put his arm around my waist, or let us get this close, if he was conscious. I’m just absent minded and don’t notice things like this when my attention is on something else.

“Jackson, are you awake?” I whispered softly.

There was no reply, except for his heavy breathing.

I sighed and realized that I was pretty tired and that I might be able to get a little bit of sleep, too, that would really help the time go by faster. So I closed my eyes and quickly, I was asleep as well.