Our Last Summer by Jennifer Joyce

Author:Jennifer Joyce [Joyce, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-05-09T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

There’s no way I can concentrate on the film now. I need to go back, back to Little Heaton before the accident, but how? I’m not in control of this thing – whatever it is – and I could weep with frustration. I wasted so much time. Squandered the opportunity to save my best friend. Instead of whining about being back home, instead of pissing around on rope swings and bike rides, I should have been doing something to protect Ed, because there’s nothing I can do now, back on the plane in the present day. I need to get back but I don’t know how, or if I can. It’s been over an hour since I was plonked back on the plane and I haven’t heard even a murmur, let alone a full-on roar, and there hasn’t even been a hint of turbulence to suggest something is about to happen.

‘I give up.’ Dolly snatches her headphones off her ears and unplugs them from the socket, winding the wire around the headset and shoving them in the seat pocket. ‘I think they’re coming round with food anyway.’

My stomach rumbles as I’m hit by the smells wafting from the trollies making their way along the aisles. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning as I was too nervous about the journey home so the only things in my stomach right now are the cocktails I had in the airport bar and the tiny glass of wine from the drinks trolley a little while ago. Still, despite the grumbling stomach, my appetite has packed up and left. I can’t eat right now, not while I’ve got so many thoughts whizzing through my brain at a gazillion miles an hour.

‘Pasta or beef?’ The cabin crew member is grinning at me, her red lips stretched over super-white teeth. I’m about to turn down the meal when my stomach growls. Loudly. It would sound ridiculous if I claimed not to be hungry now.

‘Pasta.’ I force my lips to flick upwards. ‘Please.’ I take the tray and place it on my table, my stomach rumbling again as the smells reach my nostrils. I don’t know if it smells delicious or disgusting. Or somewhere in the middle.

‘Pasta or beef, sir?’

The guy beside me has finally stopped snoring and is looking up at the cabin crew member through bleary eyes. He yawns, his mouth cavernous, before he mumbles his response. He’s handed a tray and the trolley is dragged backwards to the next row of passengers.

I peel back the plastic cover on the pot of salad and nibble at a slice of tomato. It’s bland and is doing nothing to inspire the return of my appetite. I give a piece of lettuce a go, which, unsurprisingly, does nothing for me either, not even with the addition of the dressing. I give up and move on to the pasta, which smells pretty decent but tastes like cardboard with a sprinkling of cheese.

‘Not hungry?’ Dolly unscrews her mini bottle of water and takes a sip.

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