Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Names and recognizable public figures are used in a purely fictional context. This story does not reflect real-life events or relationships. Please do not tag or send this to the real people mentioned. This is storytelling — nothing more.
Content Notes / CW:
Single parent stress · teenage conflict · emotional tension · slow-burn connection · airport meet-cute · old-fashioned romance vibes.
Reader-insert format (second person POV).
Author’s Note:
This may or may not become a full story. It was just a Valentine’s Day idea that wouldn’t leave me alone, so I wrote it down before I forgot it, and then I figured I’d share it. 🤍
The plane moves along the runway with a low vibration that slips into your body and settles there. It doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t fade.
It travels from your feet to your chest like a steady hum, as if the metal were speaking straight to your bones.
It isn’t anxiety.
It’s the kind of exhaustion that lingers.
The sort that doesn’t disappear with sleep. The kind that clings to your clenched jaw, to shoulders that finally drop when no one is watching, to the habit of functioning even when something inside you has been asking for pause for a while.
You settle by the window. The seat receives you, warm and impersonal. You check your bag one last time — more out of inertia than need — and brush against the hardcover notebook where notes from the lecture still remain.
As if paper could carry what you no longer want to.
You lock your phone and set it face down.
The gesture is automatic, yet you still feel the small hollow it leaves in your stomach — that tiny shift that comes when the thread keeping you available to everyone is cut.
London is waiting. But first, eight suspended hours — a parenthesis in the air.
Eight hours where nothing is demanded of you except quiet existence.
To breathe.
To exhale.
To inhale again without hurry, as though your body might remember what it was like before living braced all the time.
English literature professor. Twenty-nine. Single mother.
Three quick labels. Neat. Presentable.
Three ways of saying “I’m functional” without naming the rest.
Without mentioning the precise weight you carry in your chest, that pressure no one sees but that travels with you like a second heart.
None of it shows from the outside… except perhaps in the way you breathe: short, measured breaths, like someone who has learned to hold too many things at once — and not let them fall — even when they’re heavy.
Beside you, the seat remains empty a few seconds longer than usual.
It’s nothing, you tell yourself.
And still, you register it the way you register exposed skin — an absence that somehow takes up space.
Then someone pauses. Carefully stows a backpack, as if unwilling to disturb the world — or you — and sits. He doesn’t crowd you. He doesn’t rush.
That detail tells you something before you decide whether it matters. It makes you straighten slightly, your body reacting before thought does.
You don’t look up right away. There’s no urgency.
You’re used to life arriving on its own.
And to not waiting for it.
Not typical reading. Not for someone his age. Certainly not for a long flight.
And not for someone who moves with that economy of gesture, as though everything were measured: where his elbows rest, how much space he takes, how much he allows.
Everything about him is restrained.
You recognize the edition before the full title. The kind you assign in advanced courses. Fine underlining. Worn spine.
Something in your chest shifts — small enough to irritate you for existing at all.
It isn’t posturing. It’s affection for the object. It’s someone who has actually opened it.
That draws your attention before his face does. And it makes you swallow, as though you’d been caught staring too long.
“Are you serious?” you ask without thinking much. “That? On a plane?”
He smiles faintly, not looking at you yet. The slight curve of his mouth registers as a gesture not meant for you — and still it reaches you.
“It’s the only place where no one expects me to be doing something else.”
You laugh softly. The sound leaves you gentler than intended.
The reply surprises you because it isn’t trying to be clever.
It’s honest.
He closes the book, marking the page with a finger so he won’t lose his place, and only then looks up. You don’t recognize him. There’s no instant spark. No cinematic impact.
And yet you feel that gaze settle first on your chest before lifting to your face — as if reading something before actually seeing you.
He doesn’t intrude… but he stays. And something tightens between your shoulder blades.
The plane takes off. The city grows small. For a few hours, so do decisions.
Your body feels grateful before your mind does.
A while later, when the silence has grown comfortable, your phone vibrates. Once. Twice. Three times.
Your stomach tightens before you think, because you already know who it is before looking. You sigh before answering, like someone bracing to carry a familiar weight.
“Honey… what happened now?”
Your free hand rises to your neck without noticing, brushing your skin, searching for calm.
The voice on the other end is young. Tense. Too intense for fourteen — still unaware that the world doesn’t always bend, that boundaries are also a form of care.
You argue over something small that sounds enormous: schedules, limits, independence.
The same battles. New vocabulary.
You feel your jaw tighten again as you speak. The air enters measured, nearly counted, because staying calm isn’t a mood — it’s labor.
Careful phrasing. Steady tone. That balance learned the hard way.
“No, love. It’s not a punishment…”
“No. I’m not ignoring you. I’m listening.”
“Because I’m your mom. That’s why.”
Silence on the other end.
The impact is sharp, straight to the chest. You remain still for a second, as if your body needs a moment to register that it’s over.
You stare at the phone longer than necessary. Swallow. Release the air slowly. Your shoulders drop a fraction.
As though something invisible has slipped from your grip — something that still carries weight.
“Yes… I love you too, sweetheart,” you whisper to the screen, though she can’t hear you.
Your voice is softer than you’d like. As if something shifted your center.
You lower the phone. Rest your head against the seat. Close your eyes for just a second — any longer and it might show.
“Great. You managed to make her hate you… again,” you murmur, disappointed in yourself.
No drama. Just exhaustion. You learned to phrase it like a private joke so you don’t unravel. So you don’t feel the knot climbing your throat every time arguments end like this — the knot that arrives afterward, when no one’s watching.
“She doesn’t hate you,” he says beside you, voice low.
He says it the way someone sets something simple down. Not trying to fix your life.
As if speaking from memory rather than theory.
“She’s just pushing,” he adds after a brief pause. “Testing whether… whether the edge is there.”
He doesn’t speak of “limits” as theory. He talks about “edge” as something tangible — something you can touch. Something you test with your fingers.
“Oh, really?” you ask, meeting his gaze. “How do you know?”
He runs his finger along the book’s edge without looking at you, as if he thinks better when his eyes are busy elsewhere.
“Because that’s what it sounds like.”
The simplicity of that disarms you more than any elaborate explanation.
He pauses again. Glances at your phone — not out of curiosity, but as if acknowledging its weight.
“And because you…” he begins, then stops for a second. “You didn’t hang up.”
He doesn’t praise you. Doesn’t package it as virtue. He simply names it.
“Your job isn’t to win,” he continues, softer now. “It’s to stay.”
He says it plainly. As fact.
Not “to endure without breaking,” not something pretty and polished.
Just: to stay. The hard part. The painful part. The part no one applauds.
Something loosens in your chest first. Then your throat.
“Do you have kids, or do you just say that because you babysit your nieces and nephews once… every three months?” you ask, sharp by reflex. Defense.
He doesn’t take offense. Just nods, as if recognizing the trap.
“Yes. I have one. And three nephews,” he says. “But that’s not why.”
He holds your gaze a second longer than usual.
“I’m saying it because… I know that voice.”
He doesn’t say, “I was difficult.” He doesn’t make himself the example.
He gives you just enough to understand he isn’t inventing this.
“And I’ve watched good parents think they were failing when… they weren’t,” he adds, as though that part angers him.
That unsettles you more than you’d like to admit.
You blink, composing yourself. Look at the book between his fingers like someone reaching for a railing.
“That’s not common reading,” you say, shifting the conversation to firmer ground. “I teach it.”
Now he looks at you with genuine interest. You notice it in the small gesture: he leans slightly toward you. Not much. Just enough.
“I do. University level. Undergrads.”
He lets that settle. Really looks at you this time — not in a way that weighs, just… measures.
“You don’t look tired enough to survive undergrads.”
You huff a small laugh. “Give it time.”
A corner of his mouth lifts.
“That makes sense,” he says after a beat, tapping the edge of the book lightly. “I had a feeling anyone who recognized this edition would have something worth saying.”
They talk for hours — not the way people usually talk on planes. No resumes. No polished versions of themselves. No selling.
They move from subject to subject with the ease of people who aren’t trying to win anything. Time softens, as if the flight has become a room separate from the world.
“People think reading is escape,” you say at some point, “but most of the time it’s the opposite. It’s confronting things you don’t make time to think about.”
He nods slowly, thumb resting on the book’s edge. The gesture feels strangely intimate, as though he’s been doing it for years.
“That’s why people prefer summaries. Or someone else’s highlighted lines.”
“Or someone telling them what to feel,” you add. “What to think. What to hate.”
He smiles faintly — not amusement. Recognition.
Warmth rises lightly in your chest, not because of the topic — but because of how easy this feels.
“Yes,” he says. “Pre-chewed.”
They sit in silence for a few seconds. Not awkward. Productive. As though both are finishing thoughts internally.
Without noticing, they breathe in sync.
“And doesn’t it exhaust you?” he asks then. “Carrying so much. Thinking so much.”
It doesn’t sound academic. It sounds personal. It reaches you before you can shield yourself.
“Yes,” you answer plainly. “But not doing it would exhaust me more.”
He says nothing. Watches you turn the plastic cup between your fingers. Watches you breathe before answering, like someone who has learned to ration strength.
You feel seen — and for some reason, that carries weight.
“That makes sense,” he says at last. “Some people function better with real weight. Not simulations.”
They keep talking. Sometimes about literature. Sometimes about choices never made. Sometimes about small things that shouldn’t matter — and yet do.
At some point he stops reading. You stop checking your notebook. Neither comments on it.
As if the body decided first.
When the pilot announces descent, the interruption feels physical. Not a notice — a rupture. A sharp tug in the chest, as if someone cut the thread of that separate room.
You look out the window. He looks at you.
Tension hangs between you, held by everything that hasn’t been said.
Something fell short. You both know it. Not confession. Not promise. Just that clear, uncomfortable sense that time ran out.
He thinks fifteen more minutes might have shifted something. He doesn’t know what. He only knows he doesn’t want to lose it.
And you feel that without him saying it.
When the plane lands, you don’t exchange numbers. You don’t suggest it. He doesn’t ask.
And it brings a strange relief, as if for once no one is asking for another piece of you to guarantee you exist.
They say goodbye in the aisle. The space between you feels larger than it should. You walk in opposite directions, each step carrying different weight… and then, almost at the door, he stops.
His voice is stronger than before. Not loud — but enough.
The word hits your chest first. You startle slightly. Air catches for half a second. You turn slowly, already reciting your number — by habit, by reflex, by the script of how this goes — when he lifts his hand.
“No,” he says, firm but calm.
His open palm hangs between you like a gentle boundary. He steps closer, just enough so you can hear him without stepping forward yourself.
“I don’t want your number.”
He doesn’t explain. Just states it.
As if refusing to enter the expected script of the world.
Silence stretches. He looks around — not for someone, but for the place. The door. The direction. As if fixing coordinates.
You stay there, uneasy, expectant. You feel your pulse in your temples, steady and insistent.
“This is going to sound strange,” he murmurs.
He doesn’t laugh to charm you. He laughs like someone aware he’s about to do something improper — and unable to stop himself.
For a second he looks like he might withdraw. Then he meets your eyes, and that slight shift changes the temperature in the air.
“I’ll wait for you here,” he says.
As though the rest of the sentence catches in his throat.
“Right here. This same door. This same spot.”
He marks it with his gaze. The exit. The crowd. The exact place where you stand.
There’s no arrogance in the way he says it. There’s intention.
“Because you said you travel, right?” he adds, almost shyly. “And… so do I.”
He doesn’t say “frequent travelers.”
He keeps it simple. As if resisting decoration.
The smile takes a second longer than it should to appear. But it does. Not because it makes sense — but because part of you has already chosen to believe him.
You feel it in your chest before thinking, a warm pressure.
“Here?” you say, skeptical. “Wouldn’t it be easier if you just asked for my number… or gave me yours?”
The question comes out soft, careful — as though you don’t want to break the strangeness.
“Yes… that would be easier,” he admits.
He shrugs lightly, aware it sounds unreasonable and still unwilling to retract it.
“But… I like it when something doesn’t arrive already solved.”
“Oh. You like challenges,” you say, tilting your head.
The word lingers on your tongue a moment longer than necessary, as if you’re measuring its edge.
You bite your lower lip. He twists his mouth. Finally, you both laugh — a little awkward. Not broad laughter. The brief kind that surfaces when neither wants to retreat first.
“You’re definitely… unusual,” you say at last, unable to stop yourself.
The sentence escapes before filtering. Then the laughter loosens your throat.
He shakes his head, as if that isn’t entirely accurate. Silence again. He exhales too long, adjusts his backpack strap, avoids your gaze… and that tightens something in your stomach.
He isn’t leaving.
He’s searching for a way to stay without looking like he wants to.
He pauses, searching for the word. You see him swallow.
He thinks longer than he should. He could say “interesting.” He could say “different.” He chooses something else.
“Unexpected,” he says at last, with genuine honesty.
The word comes out lower than intended. Almost caught.
He doesn’t explain it. And when he looks at you again, there’s something slightly awkward in him: a subtle stiffness in his shoulders, a fraction of a second where he seems exposed — and not entirely comfortable with having crossed that line.
As if he’s said too much and can’t take it back.
You feel it too. Your pulse rises to your throat. You know that if you let it sit there, the silence will grow too large.
“I’m glad I met you too,” you reply, steering the moment toward safer ground. “Are you sure you don’t want my number?”
“Sure,” he says without hesitation.
He steps a little closer, as though sharing a secret. The distance now minimal.
“Because I don’t need it. We have a date, don’t we?”
He says it fully aware of how absurd it sounds. He exhales through his nose, trying to sound normal.
“I mean… I know you’ll come, because you said you travel often. And because you strike me as someone who keeps her word.”
There’s confidence in it — not arrogance. Instinct.
And that’s what unsettles you: not the sentence, but the certainty behind it. As though he already knows you somewhere you haven’t visited yet.
Your chest vibrates. The response slips out before you decide.
“You seem very confident…”
Your pulse rises to your throat. Your stomach tightens — not entirely unpleasant, not entirely comfortable either. A quick rush of adrenaline moving through you.
It isn’t nerves. Not exactly flirting either. It’s something else entirely. Something unarranged, its intensity neither fading nor settling. Something neither of you names — and yet something is happening between you.
You break the silence before it becomes too real.
“I mean, you’ve only known me eight hours…” you add, more to soften the intensity than to actually question him.
As if words could loosen the pressure in your chest.
He shakes his head slowly.
“No. I’m not usually this confident,” he says, already running a hand through his hair, as though he needs to dishevel himself to appear less certain.
He rubs his temple, grounding himself.
“And I don’t usually do this.”
He laughs again — this time brief, more breath than sound.
His hand gestures vaguely between you. The air thickens.
“But honestly… I don’t want to spend fifteen days texting you and sending emojis like a teenager. I’m too old for that.”
He pauses. Draws a deeper breath, as if admitting something long held back — and with you, strangely, possible to say without embarrassment.
And he isn’t just talking about messages. He’s talking about distance. About what dissolves when everything becomes a screen.
His eyes brighten slightly — not with excitement, but with relief. As if speaking it aloud freed him from something.
“I don’t have social media,” he adds. “I don’t use those… smart devices.”
He shows you his old phone, nearly outdated. He holds it like something that betrays him and protects him at once.
You laugh again, because you thought your phone was old — and beside his, yours looks modern. The laugh shakes your chest.
Then silence returns. Not awkward. Expectant.
And even though it’s brief, it feels suspended.
Neither wants to move first.
They hold each other’s gaze while the surrounding noise dulls — the world lowering its volume a notch. Their breathing falls into rhythm without trying.
“I like how it used to be,” he finishes, softer now. Slower.
His voice drops a register and runs down your spine, unhurried, like a touch that lingers.
“If this is going to happen, it’ll be old-fashioned. No WhatsApp. No Instagram. No Facebook. None of it.”
He lists them like public enemies. As though removing them leaves only what matters.
The sentence hangs between you.
The word lingers on your lips. You clear your throat. The sound vibrates in your chest — contained, brief. You need to shift the scene somewhere breathable.
Humor. That one you know.
“So let me get this straight… you want to communicate like it’s the Middle Ages?” you say, amused, glancing at the book. “What’s it going to be? Smoke signals… or carrier pigeons?”
Your voice lowers slightly at the end. You sound different to yourself. Closer.
You notice it in the way he looks at you. You hold each other’s gaze more deliberately.
And that’s when you notice the blue of his eyes — which for a moment don’t seem quite so blue, as if the color shifted with the light… or the choice.
The tension doesn’t disappear. It reshapes.
“Now I see why you like reading this… you’re very medieval,” you add. “I like that.”
You admit it like dropping a coin into a fountain without knowing if there’s a wish attached.
Now it’s his turn to clear his throat. The gesture awkward. Human. He exhales. Looks around, searching for an exit that doesn’t mean leaving.
His feet don’t move. His body doesn’t follow the goodbye.
“Trust me…” he says at last. “I have a feeling we’re going to see each other again.”
The sentence lands slowly. Not persuasive. Offered.
“I don’t know… I just feel it,” he adds.
A small pause. Enough for something to tighten in your chest.
“I have to go,” he says, and the scene fractures slightly. “By the way… my name’s Tom.”
He says it almost at the end, as if understanding he can’t disappear without leaving at least that. He offers his hand. You take it.
The formal greeting ends… and still he doesn’t move. As if the decision has been made, but the body hasn’t accepted it yet.
Then you realize you haven’t said your name.
“Oh. Y/N,” you reply. “And… I have to go too. They’re waiting for me.”
You look at each other. Then at the world. No one moves first.
And in that strange space, a quiet certainty settles. It moves through you — from head to stomach — as though your body signs something before you do.
“So here… in this exact spot,” you say, scanning the area as if memorizing a map. “I’ll see you… in fifteen days… Tom.”
You say his name for the first time.
And in that instant, it changes something.
The sentence settles inside you, warm in your stomach. It stays.
You linger there a second longer.
And still the space between you feels charged, dense — as if something invisible is holding you still.
“Yes. Here. Right here. Good night… Y/N,” he replies.
He nods slightly. Barely visible.
Then he turns. One step. Then another.
Halfway across, he pauses. Doesn’t turn fully — just enough.
He tightens the strap of his backpack and leaves.
You remain there, motionless, feeling your body take a second longer than usual to react.
Only then do you draw a deeper breath.
And you know — without needing to say it — that the fifteen days have already begun.
