The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(6)

Hadley tugged at the collar of her ski jacket, then unzipped it. “No,” she said, her heart thumping wildly. “Yes. I don’t know. I want to get out of here.”

“They’ll be here soon,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do till—”

“No, now, Dad,” she said, feeling slightly frantic. It was the first time she’d called him Dad since they’d gotten to Aspen; until that point, she’d pretty much avoided calling him anything at all.

His eyes skipped around the tiny elevator. “Are you having a panic attack?” he asked, looking a bit panicky himself. “Has this happened before? Does your mom—”

Hadley shook her head. She wasn’t sure what was happening; all she knew was that she needed to get out of there right now.

“Hey,” Dad said, taking her by the shoulders and forcing her to meet his eyes. “They’ll be here in a minute, okay? Just look at me. Don’t think about where we are.”

“Okay,” she muttered, gritting her teeth.

“Okay,” he said. “Think about someplace else. Somewhere with open spaces.”

She tried to still her frenzied mind, to bring forth some soothing memory, but her brain refused to cooperate. Her face was prickly with heat, and it was hard to focus.

“Pretend you’re at the beach,” he said. “Or the sky! Imagine the sky, okay? Think about how big it is, how you can’t see the end of it.”

Hadley screwed her eyes shut and forced herself to picture it, the vast and endless blue marred only by the occasional cloud. The deepness of it, the sheer scope of it, so big it was impossible to know where it ended. She felt her heart begin to slow and her breathing grow even, and she unclenched her sweaty fists. When she opened her eyes again, Dad’s face was level with hers, his eyes wide with worry. They stared at each other for what felt like forever, and Hadley realized it was the first time she’d allowed herself to look him in the eye since they’d arrived.

After a moment, the elevator shuddered into motion, and she let out a breath. They rode down the rest of the way in silence, both of them shaken, both of them eager to step outside and stand beneath the enormous stretch of western sky.

Now, in the middle of the crowded terminal, Hadley pulls her eyes away from the windows, from the planes fanned out across the runways like windup toys. Her stomach tightens again; the only time it doesn’t help to imagine the sky is when you’re thirty thousand feet in the air with nowhere to go but down.

She turns to see that the boy is waiting for her, his hand still wrapped around the handle of her suitcase. He smiles when she catches up, then swings out into the busy corridor, and Hadley hurries to keep up with his long stride. She’s concentrating so hard on following his blue shirt that when he stops, she very nearly runs into him. He’s taller than she is by at least six inches, and he has to duck his head to speak to her.

“I didn’t even ask where you’re going.”

“London,” she says, and he laughs.

“No, I meant now. Where are you going now?”

“Oh,” she says, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t know, actually. To get dinner, maybe? I just didn’t want to sit there forever.”

This is not entirely true; she’d been heading to the bathroom, but she can’t quite bring herself to tell him this. The thought of him waiting politely just outside while she stands in line for the toilet is more than she can bear.

“Okay,” he says, looking down at her, his dark hair falling across his forehead. When he smiles, she notices that he has a dimple on only one side, and there’s something about this that makes him seem endearingly off-balance. “Where to, then?”

Hadley stands on her tiptoes, turning in a small circle to get a sense of the restaurant choices, a bleak collection of pizza and burger stands. She isn’t sure whether he’ll be joining her, and this possibility gives the decision a slightly frenzied feel; she can practically feel him waiting beside her, and her whole body is tense as she tries to think of the option that’s the least likely to leave her with food all over her face, just in case he decides to come along.

After what seems like forever, she points to a deli just a few gates down, and he heads off in that direction obligingly, her red suitcase in tow. When they get there, he readjusts the bag on his shoulder and squints up at the menu.

“This is a good idea,” he says. “The plane food’ll be rubbish.”

“Where are you headed?” Hadley asks as they join the line.

“London as well.”

“Really? What seat?”

He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and produces his ticket, bent in half and ripped at one corner. “Eighteen-C.”

“I’m eighteen-A,” she tells him, and he smiles.

“Just missed.”

She nods at his garment bag, which is still resting on his shoulder, his finger hooked around the hanger. “You going over for a wedding, too?”

He hesitates, then jerks his chin up in the first half of a nod.

“So am I,” she says. “Wouldn’t it be weird if it was the same one?”

“Not likely,” he says, giving her an odd look, and she immediately feels silly. Of course it’s not the same one. She hopes he doesn’t think she’s under the impression that London is some kind of backwater town where everyone knows everyone else. Hadley’s never been out of the country before, but she knows enough to know that London is enormous; it is, in her limited experience, a big enough place to lose someone entirely.