I gathered my papers together and stood up for my meeting with Professor Van Dyke. It seemed longer than six weeks since I'd sat in his office and he'd offered me the chance at an amazing job in Japan as an interpreter for a mysterious group of actors who were making a movie.

"Come in, my dear, come in!" He came around his chair to hug me, reminding me as he always did of Bilbo Baggins, from Tolkien's famous books. He was a tiny, wizened old man, who was a virtuoso on the piano, and a genius teacher. I was sorry he wouldn't be my advisor for the next six months.

"So, you have an opportunity to study in England? How exciting, my dear, how exciting! And I've found the perfect advisor for you. His name is Richard Allen, he was one of my protégés right here at Thornton ten years ago. He's a professor himself, now, of course, at the Royal Conservatory of Music in London. He's agreed to be your advisor for the fall semester, and to meet with you once a week in preparation for your audition to Hamilton in January. He's very excited to meet you, my dear. I've told him all about you, and of course he's heard of you and your work here at Thornton. I sent all your contact information to him, and I've just sent all his contact information to you, so he'll be waiting to hear from you. Probably you should start meeting with him no later than September. Have you definitely settled on the Mozart as your piece?"

I nodded. "Why, sir? Do you think something else would be better? I know it's not a very well known piece, but it has sentimental resonance for me."

"No, no, sentimentality has it's place, and certainly no one performs it better, Aileen. You know how I feel about that. You should spend your time tearing it down to its roots and rebuilding it from its foundations with Dr. Allen, as strong as you can. You can sometimes get lost in a lack of confidence, as you know. You need to find your bravery, as I've often told you. You go off to London and find your bravery, my dear, that's all that's standing between you and Hamilton, I'm telling you.

"Oh, you'll do fine, I'm sure of it. And I'll be there in January to be sure, Aileen, it will be one of my proudest moments. You'll be the youngest to ever win the scholarship, I know it." He leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Now, you have a plane to catch, right?"

I nodded again. "Yes, sorry to cut it so close, but there aren't a lot of direct flights from Los Angeles to London." I rose.

"No need to apologize, Aileen. Please keep in touch, my dear, and keep me apprised of how your preparations are going, all right?"

"Of course, sir."

Another bone crushing hug, and I was out in the convertible, on my way to the airport.

***************

Teddy had been the one to suggest I try to change my flight to an earlier one on Tuesday. "It's just I miss you so fucking much, Birdie. Please can't you come sooner??"

I had texted back that my meeting with Professor Van Dyke wasn't until 4:30 on Tuesday, so when would the earlier flight be, exactly?

He had found one that left at 8:45 p.m., which I could probably make, even given LA's horrendous evening traffic, so I had agreed, packing up my stuff. I'd found various things he'd packed in my luggage as a joke while we were in Japan, including a box of condoms; I'd texted and asked if he'd left them for me to use while I was alone and received an embarrassed emoji reply. A shirt I assumed was for me that said "Future Mrs. Theo Shelley" with a photo of Teddy with a heart around it. It was quite popular with the pre-teen Crushies, and he had taken the trouble to autograph it, with the words, "I will marry you whenever you say! Kisses, Theo!" I laughed and put it on, and sent him a selfie in it, and even though it was the middle of the night I got a pageful of kisses back from him. I decided to wear it so he could see me in it when I got off the plane. He would laugh his ass off.

It was an uneventful flight until the time came to land. I could see England, I could actually see the airport, but for some reason we stayed in the air, and I could feel that we were ascending again. And flying in circles. Weird. Eventually, everyone on the plane was aware of the situation, and the atmosphere became very tense.

Finally, the pilot's voice, reassuring, calm, like someone's mother. She told us that our landing gear had failed to engage, and that we were going to have to attempt an emergency landing, without gear.

Oh Jesus.

"We will be airborne a bit longer to burn as much fuel as possible before we attempt our landing," she continued. "Please bear with us, and we'll have you on the ground, safe and sound," she concluded.

The tension on the plane ratcheted up ten more notches. I'd seen "belly up" landings on the news. There were always sparks from where the fuselage hit the Tarmac, and sometimes there had been fires, too. Explosions? I couldn't remember, but I'd definitely seen some planes go skidding off the runway.

Fuck.

So it was a matter of waiting while we burned off excess fuel. There couldn't be that much, though could there? Los Angeles was so far from London.

I looked out the window, trying to remember the last time I'd been this frightened. I couldn't die, people like me, little hiding mice people who had no effect on anyone, we didn't just die, did we? I hadn't even lived yet. I hadn't gotten into Hamilton, I hadn't performed at Carnegie Hall. I'd never been to Greece. I hadn't fallen in love, I hadn't had sex.

But I had fallen in love. With Teddy. I had to admit that to myself at least, especially if I might be dying on the Tarmac at Heathrow shortly. And as far as that last thing, well, whose fault was that?

I thought about my hero, Anaïs Nin, who'd said:

"I must be a mermaid,...I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living."

How did this relate to me? What would she have thought of me? How could I possibly call what I'd been doing until now "living" at all? Always hiding, always scared. I'd been living in "the shallows," a paddling pool, more like. How ironic to finally come to terms with my life in a swimming metaphor.

I'd lived my life in fear. And when I'd finally looked up, there had been my gray-eyed boy, waiting for me, endlessly. I'd fought him at every turn, and he was still waiting, literally, down there, beneath the clouds, this great guy who had tried so hard to show how much he cared about me.

How could I have been so stupid?

The plane juddered. That couldn't be good. We'd been circling for close to three hours. Could the plane really have that much "extra" fuel?

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure you all felt that, and you're all getting quite anxious." The pilot's professional voice, crackling over the intercom, cut into my thoughts. "We're checking things out now, and will be cleared for landing shortly." She, like every pilot I'd ever heard, obviously believed in brevity of phrasing.

The handsome flight attendant showed us how to "assume crash positions", a phrase I never thought I'd hear seriously spoken in my life. "And when the plane comes to a complete stop, you'll leave all your possessions behind and jump cleanly onto the yellow emergency exit slide, crossing your arms thusly." He demonstrated.

The next ten minutes were a blur. We were approaching the runway so fast, surely we were going too fast? The pilot's voice, tense, even over the intercom.

"Brace for impact."

Then we hit with a tremendous lurch, and a terrible jolt, not the squealing of tires that I was used to, and the awful sound of metal screeching against something. The entire plane was shaking, and I could hear people crying and praying. Then skidding so fast, at an angle that the plane had never been intended to go, almost sideways from what I could feel with my head in my lap, arms curled around. Then smoke, and a burning smell, acrid and searing, as the people around me screamed.

Then we were hit with a blast of fresh air as they threw the doors open and activated the slides, and I was standing on the Tarmac as people rushed at me, directing me away from the burning fuselage as fire trucks and other vehicles began spraying to put out the fire.

We were triaged right there on the Tarmac, probably on international TV, before we were released to find our loved ones. Our luggage was toast, of course, burned to a crisp in the fire that engulfed the plane

We must have looked like refugees from a foreign war as we filed through the double doors into the waiting room. My eyes raked the room, looking for his lanky form.

"Birdie!" I heard him before I saw him, all the way on the other side, near the windows, and we ran toward each other, just like in a cheesy movie. People stood aside, some of them even smiling, which was amazing under the circumstances. The whole romantic movie thing was ruined when I jumped into his arms, wrapping my legs around him, but I didn't care. I didn't think I'd ever unwrap my legs, frankly. He put one arm under my behind and one hand on the back of my head, eyes streaming. "Oh, thank god, thank god, thank god!" he kept repeating. Then he was crying, really sobbing, to the point of being unable to talk at all. He sat down, still holding on to me, like he was never going to let me go. No one noticed us, because similar scenes were occurring all over the room.

He finally did release my head, laughing, saying, "I need a fucking tissue, my nose is running all over your hair, darling."

I laughed, telling him I didn't have one. The person next to us tapped his arm with a tissue. He thanked her, blew his nose vigorously, then hugged me some more.

Finally we stood up, with Teddy saying, "We'd better get you home. Just let me get my phone, they set up a charging station over here for us—" and we left, arm in arm, to retrieve his phone from a bank of phones all plugged into the wall.

"Let me text the lads first, I think Matthew's ready to hop on a helicopter about now—" He quickly sent a text. "Hold on, I'll need to text my mum, too—" So after all the texting was taken care of, we headed to his car. When we got there, he turned to me. "Are you really okay?"

I nodded. "I am, truly. I'm tired, but I'm fine."

He leaned in and kissed me, gently, over and over, lots of little ones, with his eyes open, looking at me intently.

"I'm the one should be comforting you," he said. "You're the one who could've died."

"You went through just as much as I did, if you think about it," I said. "You were at the airport just as long, you didn't sleep, you were afraid, you didn't know what was going on, you were worried." I lifted his chin so I could look into his eyes. "You must be just as exhausted as me.

"Should we just call a car and leave yours here?" I suggested.

"No, I'm all right now," he reassured me. "I can get us home, honest."

"Okay." He got up, and I climbed in the car. He went around to the driver's side and climbed in, and soon we were zipping along toward his house.

This was my first view of England, but unfortunately my eyes were closed for most of it. I made Teddy promise we'd make the drive again when I wasn't so tired, because I was missing everything. What I did see was beautiful, though. It was a gorgeous morning, and London was shining for me.

"Birdie, I'm afraid I don't have much food at my house. I thought it would be fun for us to go shopping together, so I left it for us to do. Obviously I didn't know things would end up like this. So do you want me to stop by somewhere and get something for you?"

"I'm famished, actually," I said. "Crazy, huh?"

He smiled at me. "Not really. What would you like?"

"Oh, I don't care. I'm so tired I can't even open my eyes. Surprise me." I could actually feel myself starting to fall asleep as I was talking to him, I was so tired.

The next thing I remembered was Teddy shaking me awake in a parking lot. "Birdie? I just bought you a sandwich and a bottle of water, I hope that's okay. I didn't want to wake you to ask, but obviously I have to wake you so you can eat it."

"Wow, I must've really been out of it. Thank you, I'm sorry I slept through the whole thing, I should've at least gone in with you." I gratefully took the food and water. "Is it okay if I eat in the car?" I asked.

"Please," he said with a wave of his hand. "If you knew the shit that had happened in this car, you wouldn't want to eat in it, honestly." He smiled at me. "Kidding," he said, laughing. "Eat, please!"

I ate the sandwich, trying to take in some of the scenery we were passing, but it was flying by too quickly. I asked some questions about where we were, but it was difficult to talk and eat, so I gave up and concentrated on the food.

I was only able to finish about half of it, and drank some of the water. I closed my eyes again, but I started to feel decidedly strange. I tried to keep as still as possible, but it didn't help. Shit.

"Teddy? I need you to pull over, please. I'm going to be sick."

Tires squealed as he pulled over almost immediately. Luckily we were on a fairly quiet street. I opened my door and got out. He was nearly as quick, and was by my side fast enough to hold my hair before I even started. He rubbed my back as everything I'd just eaten came back up, pretty much in the same state as when it went down. Yuck.

"Oh, you poor thing," he commiserated. "My poor darling. You must be just miserable."

I stood up, finished at last. I swished my mouth out with the water, and used some of it to clean up the mess and wash it down a convenient drain. "Wow, I must be a very attractive date," I half whispered, my voice gravelly. "You must be ever so glad you came to the airport to pick me up."

He hugged me. "Don't be silly," he said to me. "You've just been through hell. You probably shouldn't have tried to eat anything at all. Let's just get you home. Come on, love." He helped me back in the car. "It's only about ten minutes away. Just shut your eyes, sweetheart."