Page 24 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

I stare out the window as the city whizzes by, each building filled with countless stories and personal dramas that I normally like to imagine but am too nervous to contemplate. At the airport we wait in Delta’s Sky Club, where Spencer happily drinks coffee and reads the papers while sending and receiving texts. I continue to breathe deeply and try not to think about dying.

I linger in the restroom on my final bathroom run. I’d still rather spend the rest of the day here in this stall than get on a plane. Fortunately the Xanax has done its job by the time we need to leave for our gate and I’m numb enough not to barricade myself inside.

Spencer flies only first class so we board quickly. I sink into my window seat, a necessity because I feel slightly less claustrophobic when I can see out, even if it’s dark and even though I’m still trapped with no control over what’s about to happen. I’m careful not to meet the eye of anyone who has to walk by us to get to coach. It feels inherently wrong to make those passengers witness others being treated better than they are. But not wrong enough to refuse the preflight drink I’m offered.

“You okay?” Spencer whispers in my ear and because we’restill on the ground and I’ve got a nice little buzz going I’m able to smile. “Yes, thanks.”

“Good.” He drops a kiss on the top of my head then checks messages and sends a few more texts while I continue to try not to think about dying. Which of course makes me imagine it in gory detail. What can I say? My imagination didn’t come with an on/off switch.

The flight attendant makes an announcement urging everyone to get seated, so that we can leave on time. I’m in no hurry to take off. Sometimes I even pray for delays. But today everything moves like clockwork. When the pilot instructs the flight attendants to take their seats, I breathe more deeply. It’s all I can do not to whimper as I stare out the window and watch the terminal recede.

As we taxi Spencer’s hand finds mine. Our fingers interlace. I try not to hold on too tightly as we thunder down the runway then rocket into the air. I swallow back the panic and stare unflinching out the window as the city falls away. Beneath us the buildings blur together, the East River grows smaller and less distinct like a blue vein beneath the skin of a hand. The boats are tiny flecks of white.

I’m still squeezing Spencer’s hand when the engines cut back and we begin to level out. He squeezes back, and I dip my head briefly onto his shoulder in what I hope he knows is gratitude. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to relax completely or lower my vigilance. There’s still a small part of me that believes that keeping up my guard somehow keeps the plane in the air. I turn down a second drink and am probably the only person in first class who’s glad they don’t serve meals on flights this short because lowering the tray table makes me feel even more trapped, and I know from experience that setting food and drink on it causes turbulence.

I do accept a bottled water so that I won’t die of thirst should I manage to survive a crash, but mostly I just hold on toSpencer’s hand and stare out the window, fiercely glad that I’m flying with a man who understands me well enough not to tell me it’s silly to be afraid, or that flying is a thousand times safer than driving, or yammers on thinking that this will somehow distract me and make me feel better.

I steal a glance at my watch. Then I breathe deeply and fix my gaze on the blue sky and the carpet of clouds below us. I wish we were already back on the ground. I wish instantaneous teleporting from one spot to another didn’t exist only in science fiction novels. I wish that this fear would go away and never come back.

Then Spencer gently squeezes my hand again and I know that even though none of these wishes are going to be granted, there’s a hell of a lot to be said for facing down your demons with someone who knows how and when to hold your hand.

Thirteen

Lauren

I’m still slightly numb from the Xanax when we arrive at the car rental counter at the Norfolk Airport, aka ORF, but I’ll be driving to the Outer Banks for one simple reason. As a lifelong resident of Manhattan, Spencer has never felt the need to get a driver’s license.

I haven’t driven since the last time I came home, so I take my time adjusting my seat and all the mirrors in the “medium”-size car that I’m pretty sure was a compact last year, before backing carefully out of the parking space and following the signs that lead out of the airport to the highway.

“Do you need me to navigate?” Spencer asks.

“You can pull the address up on my phone, but we’re just going to take 64 to 168 to 158. It’s pretty straightforward.”

You don’t really notice how compressed a big city is until you’re no longer in it. It’s especially true of Manhattan, which feels immense until you see one of those aerial establishing shots in a movie or TV show that reveals just how much stuff is crammed onto that tiny island surrounded by water.

As we drive, the distance between buildings increases. Residence Inns and chain hotels give way to industrial parks that ultimately give way to farmland. There’s space, room to breathe. Here, trees and bushes aren’t confined to parks or rooftops. They’re not lone survivors jutting out of a sidewalk. As we leave townthey grow with abandon, their leafy limbs climbing up into a vast blue sky that is not pierced by skyscrapers. The greener it gets the more deeply and easily I breathe.

We drive through Chesapeake then over the Intracoastal Waterway. The first sight of water does what no amount of Xanax can. There are still things to worry about, but they’ve dipped below the surface.

We watch the scenery in silence for a while. Passing into North Carolina we wind our way through Moyock, Harbinger, and Grandy. A succession of isolated farmhouses, mobile homes, and old wooden homesteads with family graveyards flash by, broken up by stands of trees and patches of green. Miles of railroad track curve in and out of sight. I point out a few longtime barbecue joints, farmer’s markets that have been there as long as I can remember. Near Powells Point I breathe in the dark earthy scent of the marsh. Then we hit Point Harbor and before I think to introduce it we’re on the Wright Memorial Bridge crossing over Currituck Sound.

The afternoon sun shines bright over the brownish water of the sound. The seabirds soaring through the cloudless sky caw what sounds like a welcome. My heart kicks up a notch.Home.

“I’ve never seen that peaceful look on your face before.”

I turn to meet his assessing gaze for a moment before turning my attention to the bridge.

“Yet you don’t come back very often.”

“I would have come back for the holidays if we hadn’t gone to Bermuda with your family. But, as much as I love this place and my mom, coming home can be kind of... complicated.”

“By?”

The time has come to share my backstory, the past without which no character, or human being, is complete. “Well, you’re going to meet my former best friend, Brianna. She’ll be at my mom’s with her husband, Clay, who I dated through high schooland most of college. I’m pretty sure their daughter, Lily, will be with them.”

“So your ex-best friend married your ex-boyfriend? We’re talking soap opera material.”

“Theoretically, yes. But Clay is really not the issue.”

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