Page 31 of Hearts on Ice
He tilted his head, studying me. “You don’t look fine.”
Another bump.
Miguel didn’t look away. “Hey,” he said, voice lower now. “It’s just a bit of chop—air currents shifting up ahead. Sometimes warm air hits cooler air and the plane rides the change. It feels rough, but it’s normal. We’ll clear it soon.”
He wasn’t explaining to impress me. He was explaining to keep me here, in the now, not six years back.
I nodded, jaw locked, eyes fixed on the seat in front of me. The sound of the engines changed—deeper, then higher, that half-second wobble where gravity feels like it forgot you exist. My chest pulled tight, same way it had the night I read the crash report and memorized every word.
Another dip. My stomach lurched. I forced out a breath through my nose—slow—counting quietly.One, two—
“Hey,” he said, voice deliberately bright. “Want to know the most terrifying thing I’ve ever eaten?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
He leaned in, lowering his voice like he was about to leak state secrets. “Goat-eyeball stew.”
I stared. “That’s… specific.”
“One of my older cousins’ idea of a prank,” he said, eyes glinting. “One summer cookout, he told me it was a traditional island dish that’d make me wise. I spent the rest of the day throwing up wisdom in the backyard.”
A startled laugh cracked out of me. “Jesus.”
“Every family’s got that one cousin who thinks he’s a comedian.”
That earned another laugh—softer this time, the kind that unknotted something in my chest.
“Then there’s the real stuff,” he went on easily. “Tostones, mofongo, arroz con gandules—fried plantains, mashed plantains, rice with pigeon peas. The Holy Trinity at my mom’s table. She’d throw in pollo guisado—stewed chicken—just to keep us from fighting over the last plantain.”
“Sounds like a lot of syllables,” I said, grateful for the distraction.
He chuckled, low and warm. “You’d like tostones—crunchy, salty, perfect after a game.”
“Which side of the family’s responsible for that menu?”
“My mom’s Puerto Rican. Dad’s Dominican. Means I get double holidays and double the food.” He tipped his head, smile softening. “If you ever come to dinner, you’ll eat until you can’t breathe.”
“You assume I’d survive meeting your family.”
He laughed. “You assume they wouldn’t adopt you on sight.”
Something about the way he said it made it land somewhere deeper than humor. The grin that passed between us was half a joke, half something else.
The plane steadied, engines smoothing out again. The seatbelt light clicked off.
Miguel leaned back with a quiet sigh, eyes still on me. “Better?”
“Yeah,” I exhaled slowly. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t mean to—”
“To what? Be human?”
The corner of my mouth twitched, but shame burned under my skin anyway. “It’s stupid. I’ve flown a hundred times since… since then. I thought I’d stopped reacting.”
He didn’t rush in with comfort. Just waited, quiet.
“Guess I didn’t,” I said finally. “It’s not the flying. It’s the drop. Feels like that moment before everything goes wrong.”
Miguel nodded once. “Makes sense to me.”
