Summer breaks, 1974

I honked for the nth time in past 15 minutes but my grey matter didn't process a single inch increment in space between the two cars. Running a frustrated hand through my black locks, I tugged them. My patience was thinning every second.

I am gonna miss my flight!

Groaning helplessly, I banged my head on steering wheel repeatedly. That's when her reflection from rear view mirror caught my eye. She was in passenger seat of the car in front of me. Her face was plastered on the window that resulted in strange white patches of skin which was squished by the force, she was applying to stick her cheeks on the glass. Both her palms were on either side of her face as she wiggled her fingers and made funny faces to the person sitting in adjacent car.

My eyebrows furrowed on their own accord as I tilted my head to catch glimpse of the person subject to this torment. My eyes went the size of Jupiter when I noticed a cute little girl with tear streaks and red nose covered with a pipe most likely to support her lungs, giggling. Her eyes shined brightly like stars and it felt like she was letting her pain to dissolve into her laughs.

My anger and irritation cracked a bit and a small smile teased my lips. The car in front of me moved, breaking my trance. I stepped on the gas pedal but as soon as I did, the preceding one came to an abrupt halt. I almost slammed into it. Irritation clouded me and I honked again and again and again. I must have irked the passenger as she banged open the door.

My eyes widened again. Twice in just matter of 5 minutes.

I totally forgot about her.

She closed the door angrily and finally turned in my direction.

1 word, 10 letters and 3 syllables.

Perfection.

Large, deep fathomless swirls of black night sky sparkled with anger as she stomped to my car. Summer air teased her chocolate brown hair. Her lips turned into a scowl upon locking eyes with her victim that- surprise-surprise- was me.

I snapped out of my reverie when she taped on my window in anger. With fake irritation plastered on my face, I rolled my window down and huffed.

"What?" I spoke in monotone.

She looked at me incredulously.

"Are you high on drugs or something?"

"Uh-huh. What are you, a cop?" I pointed out flatly.

"What are you, president?"

I shrugged and I swear, I saw her nose flare.

"Why the hell are you honking like a nutcase?"

"Why the hell aren't you moving that thing?"

Okay, maybe the shining Pontiac wasn't a thing but I needed a retort. Period.

I opened the door and leaned against it after getting out. Although I kept a neutral expression with frustrated edge to my voice, I was internally smirking in amusement seeing her getting all riled up. Her face was growing dangerously red and I was barely containing my laughter.

"If you haven't noticed Einstein, this road is jammed!" her voice boomed.

"If you haven't noticed princess, I have eyes!"

She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. One more sentence and she will punch me.

"Stop twisting my accusations into your retorts!"

"Stop accusing with words that can be turned into retorts."

"You are such a-"

"Hot, sexy, awesome, incredible-"

"Brat."

"Excuse me?" my demeanour shifted and I could almost feel that shift in her eyes. I stood up straighter and towered over her.

"I said you are a brat." She spit out. My jaw clenched and fist tightened.

"If I am a brat then what are you? Princess?"

"You-"

Anger fuelled in her eyes and in a flash, she lunged to strangle me. But the attack never came. The driver of her car, caged her into his embrace.

She still thrashed in his arms to kill me with her bare hands.

"Quit it." He spoke softly.

She kept revolting as he kept dragging her to his car. I could feel her eyes turn glossy, with anger or grief, I don't know.

But suddenly I felt guilty. Guilty of plaguing someone's day again. For wiping someone's smile and turning it into tears, again.

She pounded her friend or whoever on back when he threw her over his shoulder. Another slam was heard and out came a new figure.

It was a girl. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes were hard, a complete contrast to the guy whose twinkling eyes that once held amusement but now only concern sparkled.

"Stop it."

And she stopped. Like really became motionless. It was as if suddenly somebody flicked the switch on and her brain flooded with light, to stop her from tumbling and thrashing around in dark. She averted her gaze from me to the girl in front of her and mumbled a sorry.

She passed her fingers through her hair and nodded gingerly as the guy tossed her back to her seat. They both threw me a death glare in sync and it was almost creepy.

People were staring and whispering. Some even shaking their head in disapproval. I rolled my eyes and got into the car. Pushing the clawing guilt to the back of my mind, I increased the music volume and sunk deeper into seat with a sigh. After 15 more agonizing minutes, traffic finally started clearing.

I pressed the gas pedal and zoomed past other cars with one thing on my mind, what just happened?

~~~~~

"May I help you, sir?"

The raven haired airhostess purred in my ears. She bit her lips and batted her fake eyelashes at me while running her hand on my arm as she brushed her too-huge-to-be-real boobs on my chest.

Is this supposed to be sexy or is this supposed to be slutty?

"You can start by getting off me." I flicked her wrist off my arm as I spoke in a cold tone with an eye roll. She pouted and with a huff, turned on heels to walk away, almost scraping my brown eyes with her hair.

I rolled my eyes again and with a sigh, waltzed down the aisle for my seat. A brunette was sitting on the window seat, gazing out with her head bobbing up and down to the tunes her headphone played. I shrugged my bag-pack off and lifted it to put it into the compartment above. My shirt rose up a few inches.

I dropped my hands down and my eyes locked with a very familiar girl whose face could beat beet root for redness.

I wonder why?

"You!" she screeched the moment confusion cleared and realization precipitated. "You?" my voice on the other hand, dripped with disbelief. And guess, how it sounded when we both said the same word at same time but with different emotions.

Anger v/s disbelief.

"What the hell are you doing here?" again.

Anger v/s disbelief.

"Are you following me or something?!" no, only she asked this. I decided to not waste my energy.

"Really, princess?" I rolled my eyes and plopped down on my seat, trying to weave a decent apology for something I don't even know.

"Don't call me that." Her voice dropped to a whisper and I realized that it is sensitive for her. So, I nodded gingerly.

An airhostess passed our seat and locked eyes with me. In an instant, her eyes fluttered as if someone blew dirt in them. I internally rolled my eyes.

"Any problem, sir?" she tried sounding hoarse.

The brunette cleared her throat and saved me from shooing her away.

"Can I swap seats? I am not very uncomfortable with-"

"Seriously?" the airhostess sounded so incredulous that it almost felt as if someone told her that they eat puppies for dinner. Brunette on the other hand glared at me and then the bimbo. I smirked in amusement.

"Yeah. Now can you tell me, if there-?"

"Is he your ex or something?"

She choked on air. I chuckled and patted her back awkwardly.

"Aw. He is so cute. Why would you even leave him?!" She cooed dreamily making the brunette throw a menacing glare in my direction.

I held my hands up in surrender, unable to keep the smirk off my face.

"He is not my ex or anything-"

"Oh great! I would totally do him." The brunette's eyes became the size of Saturn and it was quite adorable, how she narrowed them dangerously at the airhostess before practically screaming in my ear.

"You know what?! I don't want to swap! Just get the hell outta here!"

I winced and rubbed my ear, as it temporarily turned deaf. Airhostess paled and nodded vigorously before running away with tail between her legs.

She huffed and crossed her arms across her chest before looking away outside the window.

Flight took off a few minutes later and I was still weighing the pros and cons of apologizing at the moment, but ended up stuffing my own ear buds.

She placed huge nerd glasses on her nose and dived in the world of Stephen King. We ignored each other for next few hours with only occasional glances and awkward throat clearing.

I couldn't help but notice how different we were, she always had some kind of emotion on her face, like an open book while I kept everything encased within my blank façade.

"Will you stop staring me? It's distra-creeping me out!" I was alarmed at being caught red handed but her slip helped to save my pride.

"Distracting, huh?"

"I said creeping!"

"Sure, whatever, Buttercup. I heard a distrac-creeping, though."

"Whats with you and stupid nicknames?!"

This caught me off guard. I never ever nicknamed anyone in my life. But I didn't show it in my expression. Cautious to keep it hidden, I widened my smirk and leaned closer to her. She backed away from me until her back hit the window.

She gulped and my smirk widened as I leaned close enough for our breaths to mingle. Her breath hitched when I bought my finger up to her temple and trailed it down to rim of her glasses. I lowered them on her nose and looked directly in her eyes.

"But you love it, don't you?"

Let's just say I had the biggest smile on my face when I drifted to sleep while she was burning a hole in my head. Too bad, her red flaming cheeks proved me right.

Oh and yeah, this time her cheeks were definitely not crimson because of anger.

~~~~~~~

AW. AREN'T THEY JUST SO ADORABLE?

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