I walk through the aisle slowly, reading the seat numbers below the overhead cabins. There's already an older man sitting on the aisle seat. He looks up, through his glasses at Omar and I, with his eyebrows raised.

"Are these your seats?"

"Yes," I say just as he stands up, giving us room to squeeze in.

My foot slips on the buckle that's thrown across the seat, catching my shoe. Omar's hand quickly catches my side, holding me until I find my balance. When I do, I crawl to my window seat and land with a thump. The amount of space between seats is so small it should be criminal.

"Sorry," I mumble to nobody in particular.

"It's alright," the man replies, holding an open magazine under his armpit. I purposely avoid looking at the passengers standing behind him as he holds up the line. If only stares could kill.

"Do you want the window seat?" I ask the guy but he just shakes his head, like he knew I would ask.

"I paid extra for the aisle seat," he laughs. I don't see how any of this could be funny to him but I return it with a nod and smile. Thank god this flight is only an hour and a half long.

Omar settles into the seat beside me. I can smell pinewood from him, the subtle smell of body wash that I only pick up on because he's right next to me. Finding my buckle and strap, I fasten the belt around my stomach and push the blind up to look outside.

"You okay?" Omar asks.

I turn to look at him and give him a nod, "Yeah, I'm good."

"I can ask Ben again if you want his seat," he offers. I don't know if it's just me or if he looks somewhat wounded by the fact I didn't want this seat but I shake it off as just me overthinking.

"It's just an hour," I remind him. "It's fine."

The clouds are dark, brimming with rain. Part of me wishes the weather was better. I can't stand turbulence. It's one of the scariest things that can happen to you.

Is it just a bad cloud or are you plummeting into the sea? Nobody knows.

The plane takes longer than I expected to begin moving. Underneath us, the wheels vibrate and scrape against the hard ground. I can feel every movement. Then the plane starts to pick up speed, racing down the runway. I have it together up until the lights turn off and I grip the arm rests at either side.

I touch Omar's hand by mistake, quickly letting him go as the plane takes off. I lean back, staring at the front of the plane from over the seat in front of me.

"Have you ever flown before?" he asks, watching me intently.

"Of course I have, I just hate flying," I mumble, loosening my grip.

One ear pops and then the other does too. I can't hear clearly and for a while, the dull hum in the background feels like I'm being held under water- That is until I press the bridge of my nose and blow.

"Huh," he says before pulling out the food menu from behind the seat in front of him.

I rest my head on the cool glass. It feels good against my hot forehead. I hate how hot my period makes me feel. I'm sweating while an overhead AC blows cold air on me. Exhaustion overcomes me but I can't sleep. Not in a plane.

Before getting the letter, I would have been scared of dying here. And while I haven't taken many flights in my life, every flight feels the same. There's just so much that go wrong up in the air. Where do the birds go? Do they get trapped in the giant rotating parts often? Has lightning ever struck a plane down? I mean, it is a giant metal object in the sky. It only makes sense to wonder about these things.

But not today. The worst thing that can happen is to be critically hurt. Or maimed. Anything except dying.

The plane moves its way through the clouds, ascending higher and higher until we are in the clear part above them. It's brighter here and I can see the shadowy clouds begin to shrink below us. For the people on the ground, there may be rain looming but for the next hour, we would only know of sunshine.

I hope mom will be fine for the next couple of days. We've never been away from each other except for the hours of the day when she's not home. Even as a teenager, I don't think I ever strayed too far from home and if I did, I was always back in time for the one meal we shared together in a day. She was surprised- only mildly. I'd received a raised eyebrow, something of a frown, followed by a tight-lipped hmmph. I won't lie, I'd expected something more- anything more than a hmmph.

'When'll you be back?' she'd asked, swallowing dry cereal on the couch, Sadie circling her feet.

'Two days tops.'

'Alright, good for you.' I knew there wasn't anything behind those words but I'd still felt something.

Sadness?

Envy? Definitely not.

Relief? Maybe.

I don't know.

It's funny, being up here has me thinking about Sadie too. Maybe it's a good thing Sadie arrived when she did. After I'm gone, she might be the only one left to comfort mom. That leads me to start picturing my funeral. God, would they even need to hold one? I mean, who would even show up?

I make a mental note to leave mom an email before I go.

Don't waste money on a funeral. Cremate me please and throw the ashes from my high school bleachers.

Omar stirring beside me, snaps me out of imagining myself floating in the wind. Taking this trip with two people I barely know is probably the second craziest thing I've ever done. I wonder how it'll be, y'know, when either of us dies. It's one thing to know you'll be gone but another to imagine it happening to someone else.

Omar, the head-shaven guy who is as much a stranger from when I first saw him and Ben, who is probably wondering why the fuck he's on this plane just like me, will both be dead before we know it. Maybe it's a good thing I don't know anything about them, the hopes and dreams they'll be laying to rest besides their own coffins. I don't think I have the emotional range right now to carry that with me. I don't need friends. I need distractions.

I blank out after a while. Watching the sky can only be so exciting. With half an hour left to go, I pull out the safety manual and flip through it like I'm actually reading. When I'm done with the three page manual, I stuff it back inside the seat pocket and catch a glimpse of Omar whose eyes are peacefully shut. For a split second, I wonder if he's asleep and I look away from the curl in his lashes.

It makes me think of my own. I hate my lashes. I hate how they naturally have zero curl to them. No amount of mascara can ever lift them enough for them to look as pretty. I glance at him again just as I make a mental note to lose my vanity before dying. If this is what I'm going to spend my time thinking about, I'd rather just go to sleep except for the problem that my mind won't shut off.

His eyes open and I look away, embarrassed I'd been staring. He's casual about it so I imagine he hasn't noticed.

"How much time do we have left?" he asks, his voice slightly hoarse. I guess he really was asleep.

"Twenty-two minutes," I reply.

"Wow, I think I slept for like six minutes," he says, straightening in his seat.

From beside him, the guy on the aisle seat snores abruptly and switches the side he's leaning on towards the aisle. We both watch him in silence before finally looking away.

"We'll have plenty of daylight in Baltimore," he says, more to himself than to me. "So it'd be a waste to go to the hotel first."

"We haven't booked a hotel yet," I remind him but he barely reacts.

"It's fine, we'll manage one when we land."

"You're pretty optimistic, aren't you?"

"About the hotel?"

"No, not the hotel. Never mind."

"Do you see Ben? I don't see him," Omar asks instead, causing me to look over the seat behind me.

"No, I don't. I think he's asleep." How any of these boys managed to get some shut eye on a plane is beyond me.

"Great," he impatiently taps his knee with two fingers.

"He'll wake up soon, we still have time to kill."

Ben, in fact, did not wake up as I assumed. It turns out, Ben is a very deep sleeper. After we unboarded the plane, Omar had to go back in to get him. The air hostess with the high bun and red blushy cheeks asked him to wait outside so that he wouldn't stop the flow of passengers. I caught his sharp exhale as he walked past in the opposite direction and several minutes later, Ben finally plopped out of the tunnel bridge.

By the time he walks up to us, our faces are long with annoyance.

"What?" he drawls out like a ten year old.

"Nothing," Omar mutters. "Come on, let's go."