Eight Years Of Waiting For His Flight Schedule Ended With A One-Way Ticket Chapter 10

Eight Years Of Waiting For His Flight Schedule Ended With A One-Way Ticket Chapter 10

The rain stopped in Sierra Vista.

I put on my faded old hoodie, pulled my hair into a messy ponytail, and pushed open the gate.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I bent down to unlock my bike and pulled out my phone.

A message from Sophie lit up my screen.

[The transfer went through! The agent says you can list it anytime. How much are you thinking?]

That apartment was the last thread tying me to that city.

I swung my leg over the bike, kickstand up, and texted her back with one hand.

[Market rate. What do you say we use the money to open a little inn together out here?]

Not even ten seconds later, Sophie’s reply blew up my phone.

She sent a panda kneeling and bowing with huge text over its head: “YES BOSS.”

Then a voice note. I tapped it. She was whisper-yelling, “Yes! Wait for me! I’m quitting tonight. Booking a flight right now!”

I could picture her hunched over her desk, hiding her phone.

under it, sneaking messages.

I laughed, put my phone back in my hoodie pocket, pushed off, and coasted down the lane.

At the corner of the lane, two old ladies sat on little stools selling flowers. Plastic buckets with bundles of lilies still wet with dew.

I couldn’t understand much of what they said in their local accent, but the slow rhythm of it was soothing.

One of them looked up at me, gave a toothless smile, and nodded.

I nodded back.

Out of the lane and onto the lake road. The view opened up.

I slowed down and let the wind rush past my ears.

It was hard to describe. The wind didn’t smell like a crowded subway car. Or printer toner. Or day-old takeout grease in an office.

It just came off the lake. Through the fields. Through the village. Clean.

There weren’t many people out. Just a young couple with a selfie stick by the railing. The girl was laughing. The guy couldn’t find the right angle and she smacked his head.

I leaned my bike on its kickstand and walked to the railing at the farthest spot.

Far across the lake, the water reflected a sky full of fire.

The couple moved. The girl told the boy to stand farther away, said she wanted to take a silhouette shot of him.

He posed stiff, arms out like a telephone pole. She doubled over laughing and called him a log.

I took a deep breath. The air filled my lungs—cool, carrying the smell of water and grass.

Someone once locked me out of their thirty thousand feet.

But right now, standing at six thousand eight hundred feet above sea level, I watched the most beautiful sunset of my life spread inch by inch across the lake, across the mountains, across the whole world.

I already owned the entire sky.

I opened my eyes, pulled out my phone, and took a picture of the fire burning in the clouds.

[You can see this every day when you get here.]

Sophie replied instantly.

[Screenshotted it. Attaching that to my resignation email. When my boss asks why I’m leaving? I’m telling him I’m going to go watch the sunset.]

I smiled, put my phone back in my pocket, and leaned on the railing to watch the clouds.

The sun sank completely behind the mountain. The fire faded from bright orange to soft pink-purple. The first few stars were already visible in the darkening sky.

The reflection on the lake faded too. Like a painting being slowly washed away.

Put down roots.

I finally saw my own sunset.