Dear Aaron(69)

Nonstop from Houston to Panama City Beach, Florida.

I still couldn’t believe I was about to touch down, and my family definitely hadn’t been able to believe what I was doing either.

Yesterday, my mom and Jasmine had both taken turns yelling at me.

What is wrong with you? You’re already leaving next week!

Have you lost your fucking mind, Squirt?

“You’ve never done crazy stuff,” my mom had argued, not knowing that those words alone had backfired on her so much. It only egged me on to insist on doing what I wanted to do. And that was go.

“I’m going to” and “No” hadn’t been the right thing to answer back with because that was when they’d started yelling over each other for half an hour, give or take. At that point, I did the exact same thing I had done hours later when the older man sitting beside me in the plane had slumped over midsnore and rested his head on my shoulder: I had let it happen. Except, I had let my little sister and mom yell all the reasons I shouldn’t go.

What if something happens? My little sister had asked, one hand flailing around her face while her other hand held a chocolate chip cookie clutched in it. I didn’t need to answer because my mom had rattled off a dozen things that could happen, including but not limited to me getting kidnapped, sold into slavery, and being used a drug mule.

But I managed to keep my mouth closed and let them keep going and venting and turning red.

Until finally, I said as calmly as possible, loving them so much even though they blew my mind, “I get that you’re worried… but I’m going.”

It had set them off all over again, but after a few minutes, I turned around and walked out on them for the first time in my life instead of breaking down and agreeing that going across the gulf was freaking insane.

It was. I knew it was, but as much as it scared me, their words only made me want to go so much more. Whether it was to prove it to myself, prove it to them, or neither one, I had no clue. All I knew was that I wanted to go, even more because I was nervous.

But mostly because I wanted to meet Aaron, though it scared the heck out of me.

I wanted to meet him so I could get it over with and move on with my life, or so I told myself. I could see him and know that all I felt was friendship. I figured it would be like meeting a celebrity in person and seeing they were human instead of this imaginary, perfect person you had built up in your head.

And when my mom and sister showed up at my bedroom door after I walked out on them to start packing, I stood my ground as they still attempted to talk me out of going.

I wasn’t going to budge. And I hadn’t, despite my stomach hurting and how unnatural it felt to not do whatever was in my power to please them. Because that was what I usually did. That was what came naturally to me.

Somehow, someway, I made it to the flight that Aaron had e-mailed me the details of not even two hours after I’d agreed to go to Florida, before I’d told anyone I lived with. Even leaving on bad terms with my mom, with her husband being the one to drive me to the airport because the two I was related to by blood were too pissed off to want to take me, I hadn’t been able to stop being excited. And scared. Mostly scared. Maybe fifty-fifty.

I was about to land in Florida, a place I’d been to a dozen times before.

To vacation with my pen pal I was a little in love with and his friends.

There was no need to freak out.

According to his last IMs, he and his friends were driving overnight and should have arrived at the beach house they were renting four hours ago. After that, he was driving back to Panama City to pick me up, and then we were going back to the house. I’ll meet you outside Arrivals, he’d messaged me. So we were meeting outside of Arrivals.

Hopefully.

I hoped.

I really hoped.

This tiny part of my brain kept warning me to expect the worst. That maybe he wouldn’t show up. That maybe Aaron Hall didn’t exist. That I should be prepared for him not being there, and if he wasn’t, it wasn’t the end of the world. I could figure something out. I had a credit card. Maybe I didn’t have a lot of money in my bank account, but I had my credit card, and I’d gone to swap my coins for cash the day before and come out with almost two hundred dollars.

I was good. I was good.

That’s exactly what I kept chanting to myself as the plane landed and everyone filed off. I lugged my weekend bag through the airport, so much smaller than the one back home, and stopped at the first bathroom I could find. I used it, but while I was washing my hands, I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror.

I was a wreck.

The light brown hair I’d been dyeing since I was fifteen had decided it was done being straight and wanted to resemble something out of a frizzy hair product commercial. The color I usually carried from lack of sleep under the blue eyes I’d inherited from my mom had decided to darken to an almost purple. And my mascara… I almost shuddered. Beauty was on the inside, I knew that, but a little makeup never hurt anyone.

After putting on a little more foundation, blush, and lipstick, and giving my hair a brush with my fingers, which had it looking decent again, I reminded myself that I was here for my friend and not for any other reason. I’d already told him I didn’t look like my mom or Tali. If he was disappointed in my appearance… I could get over it. I really could. I would. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.