-ing at me, but after a moment he turned towards the front too, watching the stewardess demonstrate how to adjust the straps on an oxygen mask.
I peered out the window as the plane took off, watching the ground drop away below us. Soon the plane was passing over the outskirts of the city, and then we were punching through the clouds to the bright, hot sunlight above them. I pulled out my iPod and my headphones, and leaned back in my seat, wondering about all the people below me. Was I possibly passing over anyone I knew below, one of my friendly-but-not-quite-friends from school, perhaps? It was strange to think that each of those tiny cars, each of those houses the size of a rice grain held a family or a couple or a person, each with their own life full of secrets and decisions and worries.
The music in my headphones sounded like a pulsing heartbeat, marking time for my thoughts. What would home be like, now that I’ d been away for months? Would my family still be the same? Would my dog remember me? What would I do over the summer? Would that job interview at the yoga place pan out? What about my friends from high school? What about that boy I sometimes saw biking past the bench where I did my homework in nice weather?
The plane suddenly lurched downward and my eyes snapped open, my hands flashing down to clutch my armrests with a death grip. I yanked out my earbuds and looked around frantically, expecting to see yellow oxygen masks dropping from the ceiling. But the plane had steadied and all of the other passengers were reading or sleeping or tapping away at laptops and cell phones. Nobody looked perturbed.
“ Just a little bit of turbulence,” said a voice to my right. I turned to find Mr. Smith beaming at me.“ Perfectly normal, nothing to worry about.” He patted my hand reassuringly.
I gave him a close-lipped smile and tried to pull my hand away as discreetly as possible.
15