Free This is a Love Story by Jessica Thompson Page B

wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that Elouise mentioned he was saying the words ‘holy’ and ‘shit’ in close succession at church playgroup and couldn’t work out where he had picked them up from. I went red.
    As the aircraft moved around the runway before zooming into the sky, we both sat quietly, waiting for take-off.
    I was becoming quite scared, if I was being honest. Air travel was something I had never really got my head around. Obviously there were scientific reasons why this stupidly heavy lump of metal bashed together by human beings could stay in the sky. Bashed together by human beings. Thousands of feet in the air, suspended above vast expanses of deep murky water and sharp-edged mountain ranges. People. Mortals, capable of making mistakes. People always make mistakes. Day in, day out. We are experts in the art of the accident.
    My stomach flipped as I heard the engines whirr loudly beneath us. Sections of the wings started to move, ready for the flight and our ascent into the unknown. Fear spread all over my body, washing down my legs like alcohol. I kept swallowing hard, again and again.
    We’d had such an early start that neither of us had really woken up. A dozy breakfast and a couple of overpriced coffees in the departure lounge had done little to bring us into a state of consciousness. But this was working a treat.
    Like a meerkat tanked up on Red Bull, I was well and truly alert now. I was still blushing at the thought of my display of clumsiness earlier that morning.
    Nick had swung into the driveway of our block of flats and called my phone just as he’d promised. I’d tried to be calm and cool but managed to trip over my luggage in my near comatose state of sleepiness, falling to the hard, wet ground in front of him.
    I used to take ballet classes. I used to be graceful. This morning I resembled a giraffe with its legs tied together as my foot got caught in the handle of my bag, sending me soaring into the air. My heart jumped in my chest and the force of my humiliation hit me before I hit the concrete. I’m not sure which was more painful. Why did this have to happen now? Why?
    These had not been a good few days for me, what with the Pete incident, which I had just about squirmed my way out of. Ten pounds. That was my punishment for the copying incident. They said it reflected the cost of the ink and paper. The window was covered by insurance. I think I got off pretty lightly.
    Anthony is an angry man and an unreasonable one at times, but he seemed to understand that it was a genuine accident and not much more was said after that. I was still embarrassed, though, and my fall didn’t help. I felt like a first-class idiot.
    Nick instantly jumped out of the car, reached down and picked me up as his headlights momentarily put my shame on a stage. His strength was no surprise with his build. He picked me up with ease, as though I was a rag doll. I was really humiliated and I felt angry with myself for a few moments, before I realised I was taking myself too seriously.
    We sat in his car quietly for a minute. Nick was the first to crack. I was unsure about whether I should laugh or bawl my eyes out, so I did neither and sat in silence, looking down at my bleeding palms. This would not help my mission to impress him. I looked and felt like an eight-year-old.
    Then he started to laugh, and I’m so glad he did. It started off as a quiet snigger, which burst from between his lips, sudden and sharp. He was trying so hard to hold it in but it eventually developed into a full-on belly chuckle. He turned towards me, wiping his eyes with one hand, an apologetic smile on his face. Then I went, and we were both laughing so much we couldn’t speak.
    ‘Let me see those,’ he said eventually, gently pulling my hands towards his chest. He softly turned my palms over and made a hissing sound when he saw the gentle drops of blood rising to the surface of my skin. I wasn’t looking at my bleeding hands. I