Free The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith Page B

child awakening from a bad dream, then blinks at her, staring for just a beat too long. Hadley tries not to take it personally, but she knows she must look awful this morning. Earlier, when she stood in the tiny bathroom and regarded herself in the even tinier mirror, she’d been surprised to see how pale she looked, her eyes puffy from the stale air and high altitude.
    She’d squinted at her reflection, marveling at the fact that Oliver was bothering with her at all. She wasn’t normally the kind of girl to worry too much about hair and makeup, and she didn’t tend to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, but she was small and blond and pretty enough in the ways that seemed to count for the boys at her school. Still, the image in the mirror had been somewhat alarming, and that was before she’d nodded off for the second time. She can’t imagine what she must look like now. Every inch of her feels achy with exhaustion, and her eyes sting; there’s a soda stain near the collar of her shirt, and she’s almost afraid to discover what might be going on with her hair at the moment.
    But Oliver looks different, too; it’s odd, seeing him in daylight, like switching the channel to high-definition. His eyes are still caked with sleep and there’s a line running from his cheek to his temple where it was pressed against her shirt. But it’s more than that; he looks pale and tired and drained, his eyes red-rimmed and somehow very faraway.
    He arches his back in a stretch, then squints blearily at his watch. “Almost there.”
    Hadley nods, relieved that they’re right on schedule, though a part of her also can’t help wishing for more time. In spite of everything—the crowded quarters and the cramped seats, the smells that have been drifting up and down the length of the cabin for hours now—she doesn’t feel quite ready to step off this plane, where it’s been so easy to lose herself in conversation, to forget all that she left behind and all that’s still ahead.
    The man in front of them pushes open his window shade and a column of whiteness—so startlingly bright that Hadley brings a hand to her eyes—streams in all around them, snuffing out the darkness, stripping away whatever was left of last night’s magic. Hadley reaches over to nudge open her own window shade, the spell now officially broken. Outside, the sky is a blinding blue, striped with clouds like layers on a cake. After so many hours in the dark, it almost hurts to look for too long.
    It’s only four AM in New York, and when the pilot’s voice comes over the PA it sounds far too cheerful for the early hour. “Well, folks,” he says, “we’re making our final descent into Heathrow. The weather looks good down in London; twenty-two degrees and partly sunny with a chance of showers later. We’ll be on the ground in just under twenty minutes, so please fasten your seat belts. It’s been a pleasure flying with you, and I hope you enjoy your stay.”
    Hadley turns to Oliver. “What’s that in Fahrenheit?”
    “Warm,” he says, and in that moment she feels too warm herself; perhaps it’s the forecast, or the sun beating at the window, or maybe just the proximity of the boy at her side, his shirt wrinkled and his cheeks a ruddy pink. She stretches to reach the nozzle on the panel above her, twisting it all the way to the left and then closing her eyes against the thin jet of cool air.
    “So,” he says, cracking his knuckles one at a time.
    “So.”
    They look at each other sideways, and something about the expression on his face—an uncertainty that mirrors her own—makes Hadley want to cry. There’s no real distinction between last night and this morning, of course—just dark bleeding into light—but even so, everything feels horribly different. She thinks of the way they stood together near the bathroom, how it seemed like they’d been on the brink of something, of
everything
, like the whole world was changing as they huddled