They Bet On My Flight, So I Booked One To Iceland Chapter 08

They Bet On My Flight, So I Booked One To Iceland Chapter 08

I looked up.

Elias sat upright, his expression solemn.

“Avery, I’d like you to join the curatorial program I’m planning for the next five years. This isn’t a joke, and there are no bets involved. You can say no now, or you can take the forms home and think about it.”

I opened the packet and found a note attached to every page.

He had addressed each concern I might have, one by one.

The studio contract, the exhibition schedule, the revenue-sharing terms, and the housing arrangements were all clearly explained.

On the final page, there was only one handwritten line.

[You have the right to say no at any time.]

My eyes suddenly burned.

Normal closeness did not require tests or taking someone’s belongings to prove intimacy.

I picked up the pen and signed my name at the bottom of the application.

Elias did not rush me or smile as though he had won something.

He simply gathered the documents and said softly, “Thank you for trusting me.”

Six months later, my former classmate told me what had happened back home.

After Chloe was fired, she went through two more jobs.

At the first job, she changed a coworker’s desktop wallpaper to a prank image, causing the coworker to make a mistake during a presentation in front of everyone.

At the second, she used her manager’s account to send out a joke announcement without permission, prompting a complaint from a client.

No one excused her behavior as “just being herself” anymore.

Eventually, she ended up working as a cashier at a small grocery store owned by relatives.

Every day, someone watched her closely as she rang up purchases, made change, and checked inventory.

She no longer had any opportunity to treat other people’s boundaries like her personal playground.

Mason was doing even worse.

He sold the apartment but could not send me the money because the bank account information he had for me was no longer active.

He tried contacting me through mutual friends, but no one was willing to help him.

Eventually, he began emailing me.

He sent one message every day.

Most of them were short.

[Today, I didn’t make any bets.]

[Today, I didn’t touch anything that belonged to someone else.]

[Today, I remembered to ask for permission first.]

But those lessons had come far too late to mean anything to me.

Once, when my former classmate went back home to take care of something, she saw him outside my old apartment building.

He was sitting outside the building where he no longer owned an apartment, clutching the empty anti-anxiety pill bottle in his hand.

She told me he held it tightly against his chest and did not react even when someone approached him.

After hearing that, I simply mounted a new frame on the wall.

In one corner of the painting, I had painted a floor-to-ceiling window that had been completely shattered.

On the other side of the shattered window, there was no longer a lock sealing anyone in.

Beyond the broken glass stretched a wider sea beneath the northern lights.

…

Three winters later, I returned home to finalize the title transfer on the old house my parents had left me.

Elias came with me.

When we stepped out of the building after finishing the paperwork, snow was falling heavily.

He pulled my scarf higher around my face.

“Are you cold?”

“I’m fine.”

“The car is across the street. Do you want to wait by the entrance while I bring it over?”

I shook my head.

“Let’s walk together.”

As we reached the intersection, I saw a man crouching beside the road.

He wore a worn-out coat over his thin, hunched shoulders and cradled a cheap strawberry cake protectively in his arms.

It was Mason.

He did not recognize me.

Or perhaps he simply could not tear his eyes away from his phone.

On the screen was the contact photo attached to a number that had been disconnected years ago.

He spoke quietly, as though he were afraid of waking someone.

“Avery, it’s your birthday. I got it right this time. You’re not allergic to strawberries.”

He paused, then added carefully, “I don’t make bets anymore. Will you please open the door?”

Not far away, Chloe approached in a grocery-store uniform, carrying a bag of marked-down produce.

Her hands were red from the cold. She wore no makeup, and there was no smile on her face.

When she saw Mason crouching in the snow, she stopped for a few seconds as though she had grown used to the sight.

“Get up,” she said numbly. “If you keep sitting out here in the cold, I’ll have to take you to the hospital.”

Mason ignored her.

Chloe reached down to pull him up.

He suddenly shoved her hand away.

“Don’t touch me.”

Chloe stumbled back a step. Her eyes reddened, but she did not cry.

“Mason, hating me won’t change anything. Avery isn’t coming back.”

Mason finally looked up at her.

His eyes were empty.

“If it weren’t for you, she never would have left.”

Chloe gave a smile that looked worse than tears.

“If you hadn’t locked her in, she wouldn’t have come so close to dying.”

They stood in the snow like two trapped animals that had gnawed each other down to the bone.

Elias’s fingers brushed lightly against the back of my hand.

“Do you want to go over there?”

I shook my head.

“No.”

Mason seemed to hear something and suddenly turned toward us.

My sunglasses and scarf kept him from recognizing me immediately.

But then his gaze stopped.

For one brief moment, he looked like someone surfacing from a long nightmare.

He hesitated, then took a single step forward.

“Avery?”