Page 10 of Before I Should Leave
Low. Firm. And just like that… the spinning paused. I didn’t lean into him. Not fully. But I didn’t move away either. His palm was wide, warm, grounding. It didn’t ask for anything. It just… held me still.
“You not gon fix this by panickin’,” he said low, voice cutting through the chaos like a bass note under noise. “C’mon. Let’s go inside. You can check the counters and see what they got for the mornin’.”
“I don’t want you to—”
“I’m not leavin’ you out here like this,” he said, soft but firm. “Let’s go.”
And I did. Because something about the way he said that made me trust him with parts of me I usually keep locked up.
The sliding glass doors whooshed open as we stepped inside, and the airport hit me like a wave—bright fluorescent lights, beeping carts, gate change announcements over the intercom, crying babies, people arguing at kiosks, phones ringing, bodies moving fast in every direction.
I hated airports even when things were going smoothly. But now? My nerves were wired. Diesel stayed close, though not smothering. Not hovering. But present. His hand lingered just above my waist as we moved through the crowd, like he could sense the exact moment I was about to unravel and was ready to catch it before it spilled.
I spotted the Delta counter and started toward it, scanning the board above: CANCELLED lit up in bold red letters across almost every flight after 9:30 p.m.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “This is a mess.”
He stepped beside me, voice low. “Want me to stand in line wit’ you?”
I looked at the crowd already forming and swallowed. “I might lose it.”
“Then we’ll lose it together,” he said, and somehow that made me laugh under my breath. Just a small one. Enough to remember I was still in my body.
I turned to him, my voice quieter. “Why are you being so… patient with me?”
He tilted his head slightly. “'Cause you don’t let people take care of you, and I can tell tonight caught you off guard.”
“Off guard is an understatement.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So I’m here. That’s it.”
I stared at him. This man, whom I didn’t know earlier today, was looking at me like he’d been holding women like me steady his whole life. Strong women. Loud, soft, brilliant, guarded, ambitious women. Women who didn’t cry in public. Who handled shit. Who fell apart quietly and expected no one to notice. But he noticed and didn’t run from it.
The Delta line barely moved. I shifted my weight from one heel to the other, chewing the inside of my cheek, trying not to roll my eyes at the family of four up front still arguing over checked baggage fees like we weren’t in the middle of an airport apocalypse.
Diesel stood close enough for me to feel his presence, but didn’t crowd me. He’d tucked his hands in his pockets, calm as ever like the airport wasn’t giving chaos and malfunction on every level.
Finally, we stepped up. The agent was a young Black woman, probably in her twenties, her slick ponytail frizzing at the edges from the humidity in the terminal. Her name tag saidRita, and her face said I don’t make the rules.
I tried to soften my voice. “Hi. My flight to Chicago was canceled. I was hoping to get rebooked.”
Rita barely blinked. “Confirmation number?” I rattled it off. She tapped. Tapped again. Clicked. Then squinted at the screen. “Mmhmm. Okay, so…” she sighed. “Yeah, looks like there’s nothing going out tonight. The earliest I got is 6:45 tomorrow morning. The weather's locking everything down.”
I blinked. “That’s theearliest?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Not even another airline?”
“Ma’am, everything eastbound is being rerouted or grounded.” Diesel stepped a little closer, not saying anything, just there. Solid. Silent. Rita kept typing. “You got priority status so you’ll be on the first out. And it looks like the airline’s offering a comp hotel stay tonight at the Marriott inside the terminal.”
I stared at her. “A hotel in theairport?”
“It’s connected through the shuttle tunnel. You won’t have to leave the premises.”
I was seconds from snapping. Not at her because she didn’t cause the weather but just at the situation. The delays. The shift in plans. The unraveling of control I’d fought all damn day to keep tight. “Okay,” I said, forcing calm into my voice. “Fine. Thank you.”
Rita handed me a little voucher slip and pointed to a side kiosk. “You’ll check in through there. The shuttle runs every fifteen minutes. You’ll get a king and it’s really nice.”
