My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(95)

The girl looked at me, confused, but before she could even answer, I thrust my own ticket toward her and said, “Here. Take it. You can have it if you give me yours.”

“But that is your ticket.”

“You can have it. We can trade. Here.” I waved my ticket, but the girl glanced nervously at the gate agent standing by the door.

“It’s okay. They don’t check IDs during the boarding process,” I told her. “If you want to go to New York, this is your chance. Just give me your ticket. Give me your ticket and go.”

I could practically see what she was thinking. I was a teenage girl, too. We were about the same height, the same weight. To anyone in that heavily secured airport we might have even looked like sisters. It’s not like I was a creepy dude asking her to get into my van, but the offer probably sounded too good to be true. Which meant it probably was.

She hesitated, then snatched the ticket from my hand, held hers out to me.

“Go ahead.” I motioned toward the open door. “You’re boarding.”

She pointed to another open door a few gates away, another mass of crowding people. “So are you.”

It really was that easy, believe it or not. I started toward the open doors. For the first time in my life I did not look back, not until I heard the girl call, “You don’t even know where I was going.”

I shrugged and shook my head and said the only thing that mattered: “If you just want to go away then any ticket will get you there.”

*

“Miss?” the voice came through the blackness, and yet I did not move. “Miss!” The flight attendant seemed almost sorry. “It’s time. We’re here.”

That’s when I realized the plane was on the ground; all the other passengers were gone. The lights were down and the tarmac was dark. Wherever the girl was going, I was there.

Walking through the nearly deserted terminal, I made a list of what I had to do. I had enough cash for a hotel and a car, but they’d never rent one to a minor. Especially a minor traveling alone. I took the battery out of my phone, knowing I’d need to buy a burner. I would have to—

“Hulda!” someone yelled.

I looked at the crowd of people waiting just outside of security.

“Hulda!” the woman at the front of the crowd yelled again, a massive Welcome (to your new) Home, Hulda! banner unfurled in front of her. “We’re so glad you’re here!”

As she rushed forward, she must have crossed into a secure area because an alarm started sounding—both in my head and out of it.

This was dangerous.

This was wrong.

This woman was invading territory that was better left roped off. Secured. Barricaded and impenetrable to intruders. But the breach had already happened, and I let myself give in to the hug.

It was, after all, a really nice hug.

“Well, look at you!” The woman held me at arm’s length. “You changed your hair.”

I thought back to the short blond locks on the girl in the airport. The girl with the accent. The girl from Iceland. The girl these people were evidently waiting for.

I felt myself starting to panic, needing to run …

“You look so different from your picture,” the woman said, and I managed to breathe.

The girl these people had evidently only seen in pictures.

Maybe they wouldn’t get suspicious, call security. The police. Maybe I could just bide my time and slip away quietly and …

“Well, what am I doing hogging all the hugging? Ethan!” the woman yelled. She looked around, and I followed her gaze to the boy who was walking around the corner.

He wore Wranglers and boots and a plaid shirt heavy with starch. Until then, I’d thought boys like him only existed on the covers of romance novels. He must have been shocked by the looks of me, too, because he stopped short, frozen in the process of sliding a phone back into his pocket. Hulda’s words came back to me:

I don’t love him.

My other boyfriend.

“Ethan!” the woman yelled. “She’s here!”

I started to spin, but I was too late. He was already there. Looking at me. I could see the truth playing across his face, the realization that I was not an Icelandic girl name Hulda. I was not his girlfriend.

“It’s…” The boy started, and, mentally, I filled in the blanks.

An imposter!

A liar!

A fraud.

He moved closer.

“So good to see you!” the boy said.

And then he kissed me.

*

So it turns out that if you swap tickets with a girl who doesn’t want to go see her boyfriend, then there’s a good chance said boyfriend will meet you at the airport.

Along with his entire family.

“This is Aunt Mary,” the boy—Ethan—said, pointing to the woman with the really good hugs. “You’ll be staying with her,” he added before pointing to the others. “My mom, Susan. Dad, Clint.”

Clint took my hand in his big, beefy, calloused one, but he gave me a warm smile.

“Welcome.” His voice had a soft, southern twang. They all did.

“Oh, and that’s Emily. She’s my sister,” Ethan said as Emily looked up at me with the biggest bluest eyes that I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure she could see right through me.