Breaking Tackles: A Taking Flight Novel (40 page)

Dan

I shift in my seat at the terminal gate. After sitting for two and a half hours on a flight, you’d think that I wouldn’t want to sit anymore, but standing means that I have to drag my dad’s old suitcase with me and that’s annoying. So my options are: be annoyed while standing or be uncomfortable while sitting.

But I just can’t sit here anymore. I have too much pent-up energy and this chair is too uncomfortable to stay in for much longer. I grab my suitcase and head away from the terminal, unsure of where I’m going. It feels great to stretch my legs and at this point, I don’t really care where I’m going. I have another hour and fifteen before my flight boards, so it’s not like I’m in a hurry to get back.

After walking aimlessly for a while, my stomach starts to growl. I check my watch and see that I don’t really have enough time to stop in at the Chili’s, so instead I get in line at a bagel place. Its mid-morning, so the line is about five people deep, which I’m sure is much more reasonable than it is during the early morning rush.

Within ten minutes I have my bacon, egg, and cheese bagel and a Coke. I consider going back to my gate, but when I spy a small seating area with tables, I think better of it. I head toward the lone unoccupied table and sit there, feeling as if I’ve accomplished some sort of miraculous victory by snagging the last available table. As I’m biting into my sandwich, I hear a girl say, “Do you mind if I share your table?”

I look up and see the pretty girl I ran into at the airport bookstore a few months back. Weird.

“Ender’s Game?” she asks, clearly as taken aback as I am.

“Still want to share my table?”

“Well, seeing as how there’s nowhere else to sit, yes,” she says, taking the chair without my permission.

I don’t really want to share the tiny table, but it’d be insanely rude if I insisted she leave at this point. And if I’m being honest, I’m excited to see her again. How random is it to run into the same stranger twice in the same place at two different times?

I take a bite out of my sandwich as she pulls her food out of a bag.

“So you like sci-fi novels and bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwiches,” she says. “And I’ve run into you twice in O’Hare.”

“Yep,” I say, unsure of what other answer she’s looking for. “I guess it’s kind of weird that we’ve seen each other twice at an airport.”

“Not necessarily,” she says. “I run into the same strangers all the time.”

“Is that a weird way to say your friends?” I ask, both confused and intrigued by what she just said.

“Nope. I see lots of people that I recognize, but don’t actually know and never talk to, on a near daily basis when I’m getting on the cross-town bus or going to the bodega. I’m just saying that if two people are in the same place often enough, they’re bound to run into each other.”

“Where in the world do you live?” I ask her. “And what in the world is a bodega?”

“I live in New York,” she says.

“Oh wow,” I say. “That’s awesome.”

“I guess so,” she says with a one-armed shrug. “I think it’s different when you’re from there. I mean, yeah, I know that I live in a cool place, but I don’t think I see it the way people who aren’t from there see it. Does that make sense?”

“I guess so,” I say, taking another bite of my sandwich. She unwraps her food and I see that it’s a bagel with cream cheese, but there are a bunch of seeds and stuff on the bagel. It smells great. “What kind of bagel is that?”

“Everything.”

“It’s called everything?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says, laughing a little again. “And, for the record, a bodega is like a convenience store.”

“Then why don’t you just call it a convenience store?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Why don’t you call a convenience store a bodega?”

She has me there. I look up from my bagel and we make eye contact for a few tense seconds before we both start laughing.

“I’m Dan,” I say. “From Dallas.”

“Hi, Dan from Dallas,” she says. “I’m Willa, from New York.” She holds her hand out and I shake it.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I say, looking directly at her. I can’t help but notice that her skin is really soft and that she has really pretty eyes. But I don’t want our handshake to be one of those weird, long handshakes that ends up being kind of sweaty so I loosen my grip and she does the same.

“So, do you travel a lot?” I ask.

“Every month,” Willa says before taking a bite of her bagel as if it were a sandwich. I’ve never seen anyone do that. When the bagel has cream cheese on it, my dad and I have always eaten them one half at a time. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong?

“Me too,” I say.

“Divorced parents?” she asks.

“Yep.”

“Me too. Sucks. But I guess the bright side is that at least I get to see my dad once a month.”

“I’m in the same boat. But I travel to see my mom. She lives in Philly.”

“That’s cool,” she says. “What grade are you in?”

“Eighth.”

“Hey, me too!” 

“Awesome,” I say, before realizing that ‘awesome’ is not the right word to use there. I overuse that word and have a teacher who is really particular about it. She always calls people out when she hears them say it too often. “So where does your dad live?”

“Missouri,” she says.

“I’m guessing it’s pretty uneventful compared to New York.”

“It’s actually fine,” she says. “I kind of dig how completely different it is from the city. I just hate how far away it is.”

“Did you and your mom move to New York after, you know, the divorce?” I ask.

“No, my dad moved. He got a job at a university teaching journalism.”

“Got it,” I say. “My mom moved afterward, too. She’s an attorney and got an offer from a firm in Philly. So off she went.”

“Does she like it there?” Willa asks.

I polish off the last of my sandwich and say, “I think so. She only moved about six months ago and all she really does is work, but I’ve never heard her complain or anything.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess,” she says.

We fall into a silence that is strangely comfortable. I check the time on the crappy old cell phone my dad lets me use when I travel and see that I need to be heading toward my gate soon.

“What time is your flight?” I ask Willa.

“I still have another hour before boarding,” she says after checking her watch.

I push my glasses up on my nose with my knuckle and feel awkward. I don’t want to leave Willa sitting here by herself. I want to hang out here with her some more. She’s pretty cool. But I also can’t miss my plane.

“What about you?” she asks.

“I actually need to make my way to my gate.”

“Okay,” she says. “Thanks for letting me share your table.”

“No problem.”

Another silence stretches between us. I don’t want this to be the last time I talk to her. I’ve never hit on a girl before and don’t really know how to do it. At least not smoothly. I swallow hard and just go for it.

“Can I have your email address?”

“Sure,” she says, grabbing the receipt from the paper bag her bagel came in and fishing a pen out of her purse. She writes down her email and hands it over to me, smiling. “If you don’t email, I’ll be offended, you know.”

“Yeah?” I ask, my pulse quickening. I think she’s flirting with me.

“Yeah,” she says. “Especially since I read
Ender’s Game
and have no one to discuss it with at school.”

A smile takes over my face and I hope that there isn’t any food in my braces. Braces are the worst. I quickly wipe the smile away and ask, “Did you like it?”

“Loved it.”

“I’ll email. Promise.”

“Bye, Dan.”

I wave and head toward my gate. I am in deep trouble with this girl.

Book four, y’all!

To my incredible editor, Tara Quigley Whitaker (New last name! Whee!), who has been helping me craft these characters and their stories since the beginning. I love that you left me a comment in
Making Headlines
requesting I write a story for Courtney and Adam, and I so appreciate the amount of exclamation marks in your edits for this book. Believe it or not, you help make revising fun! (Put that on your business card.)

If it weren’t for my cover designer, Paige Doscher, my books would have really terrible covers because I am worthless when it comes to design. Thank you so much for all the hours spent looking at photos, reading my ridiculously long emails with links to photos of models that are clearly wrong even though I’m trying to make them fit what we want, and then finally putting everything together and making it look gorgeous and perfect in the end. You are a wizard.

To my sister, Olivia, for fielding my panic attack-filled text messages about my writing and my anxieties about launching a book, making me laugh, and generally being awesome.

To Chris, for understanding that writing and reading are important to me and for never expecting me to spend less time doing either of those things. I am so excited to marry you.

Being an independent author is hard, and I would probably lose motivation and enthusiasm if it weren’t for my friends and Kappa Delta sorority sisters who are always thrilled to hear about a new book, happy to share a silly social media post to help with publicity, and give me feedback when they’ve read my stuff. Your words of encouragement and support are more important than you could possibly know, especially when I’m all the way around the world in Singapore, which really does feel very far away sometimes. Even with the Internet. Thank you so much for supporting me. I love you all.

To H.G. Bissinger, Peter Berg, Jason Katims and everyone behind
Friday Night Lights
, which made me realize that a story about football could be much more than a story about football. And also, for Tami Taylor. And Riggins. Obviously.

To all of the bloggers and readers who have not only read my books, but also left reviews and feedback online, and have talked about my writing on social media: you are my lifeblood, and the lifeblood of all of writers you support and champion. Thank you
so
much for sharing your passion for reading.

And finally, to my mom, for making me learn the rules of football when I made the junior high school dance team. I think you would have really liked this one.