top marks in all your ground training. You scored top of the class in your last set of tests.”
“I just don’t want to do it anymore.”
I said I’d pay them back, but even if I were to manage it, the house they sold to pay for my training was long gone.
I hated myself for giving up. Giving in. I tell myself being cabin crew is the next best thing, but it’s more penance than consolation prize. A constant reminder of the choice I made.
“Mina?” Charlie’s voice in my ear, Rowan tugging at my sleeve. They’re talking at me, these two men, but I can’t hear the words. The instruments blur into a mass of brown and gray, and the voices belong to another time, another man.
Vic Myerbridge.
I met him in the White Hart. Nice enough, but not my type. Old enough to be my father, for a start, and possessed of a confidence that tipped too often into arrogance. But we talked about flying, and he made me laugh, and it was a pleasant way to spend the evening after a friend had bailed on me.
“I’ll walk you back to your block,” he said. The bar was close to the training school—technically public, but pretty much entirely populated by student pilots or qualified ones who paid to keep their own aircraft on site, and I guessed he fitted into the latter category, although he hadn’t said.
“Not going to invite me in?” he said when we got to my room.
I laughed. Why did I laugh? I felt awkward, I suppose. “It’s a bit late. Thanks for a nice evening.”
He tried to kiss me, and I stopped laughing. Brought my knee up, hard, and then he wasn’t laughing either. I shut my door and locked it, poured myself a stiff drink, and vowed to avoid the pub for a few days until he’d moved on.
Two weeks later, we were assigned the instructors for our first dual flights.
He didn’t say anything. Not when we were introduced, not when we shook hands. Not when we walked out to where the Cessnas were lined up waiting. Not during the checks or when we were taxiing out. He had forgotten, perhaps, or not recognized me—or perhaps he was mortified by his behavior and thought it best to move on.
At nine thousand feet, he told me to concentrate more on how the plane reacted to my controls, to feel its response.
“Every action has a reaction. Here, let me show you.” He reached across and put his hand on my breast.
I froze.
He circled my nipple, then pinched it hard between thumb and finger. “Feel the response?” His voice came through my headset, so close to my ear, I thought I could feel the dampness of his breath.
“No.”
“I think you can.” He tweaked my nipple again, as if its hardened state were evidence of my lie. My hands shook on the yoke and, at that moment, crashing seemed the better of my options. When he moved his hand to between my legs, I told myself it was happening to someone else. The cockpit of a Cessna 150 is a little under three feet wide, the two seats pressed close against each other. From your seat, you can reach out and touch both sides of the cabin, the front, the back, the ceiling. There is nowhere to go. I kept my eyes fixed on the artificial horizon until I couldn’t see through my tears, then I closed my eyes and let him take control.
“Mina?” Rowan shakes my shoulder.
I find my voice, eleven years too late. “Get off!”
He jerks back, confused, and even though I know it’s not him, I know, too, that I can’t be in the flight deck with Rowan—with anyone—if I’m going to bring this plane down safely.
“You have to get out,” I tell him.
“Mina, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I rip off my headset. Rowan reaches for me, but I throw off his hands because it isn’t helping. Blood roars in my ears, and the flight deck isn’t the triple seven anymore but the tight confines of a Cessna, and Rowan isn’t Rowan, but—“Get out! Get out! Get out!” I swipe at him wildly, not stopping until he pushes his seat back, his arms raised against my fists, all the time telling me to stay calm, it’s okay, everything’s okay.
It is not okay.
Everything is not okay.
It isn’t okay until Rowan is gone, and the flight-deck door closes, and I’m finally alone. But no sooner does