Nervous Flier by Chloe Glint Page B

her.
    "Honey, who is this?" the woman asked.
    "Just a salesperson." Then Peter shot her a dark stare to suggest he would chop off her head and bury her in the backyard if she said otherwise.
    "Oh." The blonde woman turned and gazed at Noel curiously. A slow smile eased over her face. A nice smile. "Hi. This isn't really a good time. Today is our anniversary, so we have a reservation at a restaurant in fifteen minutes."
    Then the blonde woman leaned over to Peter, ran her hand through his short dark brown hair, and delivered a kiss to his chiseled cheek. The action hurt her heart so much she had to take a physical step back in order to deal with the blow. Noel could feel the color drain from her face and heard her heart pound in her ears so hard that she could scarcely hear anything else. As she stood there, watching the size two blonde grasp onto the man she thought was her boyfriend, she felt so inadequate she wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Of course Peter wouldn't want a woman like her when he had a magazine perfect woman on his arm. Noel peered into the sky, shocked a hurtling meteor wasn't heading straight toward earth—and her. Tears crawled up her throat as she whirled around and sprinted toward the sidewalk as the woman cried out in concern from behind her.
    As Noel kept running and running, she found that she couldn't stop, even as her lungs screamed and her jeans bunched around her thighs. She ran past the bus stop that would have taken her to her hotel. Her heart ached so much she wanted to rip it out and throw it on the ground so that way she didn't feel anymore. She ran until sweat poured down her back and she had to head toward a patch of grass where she dry heaved, sobbed, and then fell to her knees.
    How could I have fallen for that jerk's lies? How could I? Yet it was too easy to imagine the two of them walking hand in hand in Sydney, filled with laughter and good food and strong beer. It was easy to imagine Peter calling her beautiful, then cupping her breasts as he took her in bed. But she didn't want to remember those memories anymore. She wanted to erase them from her head. But she couldn't. She couldn't forget the hurt and mortifying embarrassment either. Not only had Peter used her, but she was likely the butt of his jokes too. She could hear his voice echoing in her head, imaginary words that he had likely spoken to his friends . "There is this woman I met in Australia. Really dumb. She thinks I'm her boyfriend. Like I would ever date a woman like her."
    With a groan of embarrassment and sadness, Noel shoved her fist into the grass and continued to sob.
    ****
    That night, Noel collapsed onto her bed, then stared at the ceiling in a pool of sadness, embarrassment, and anger. There were so many things she wanted to do, all at the same time. She wanted to beg at the feet of Peter, head back to Australia with her tail between her legs, and show up at Peter's house with a baseball bat all at the same time. How could he do this to her? How long had he been with the skinny, model-esque blonde? Had he really cared about her in the beginning, or had he just been acting? The idea she had been played the fool from day one made her flip onto her stomach and pelt her pillow with rage. As she hit her pillow again and again, imagining Peter's gorgeous face with every swing, she felt her cell phone in her pocket vibrate. Swearing, she dug her hand in her pocket, then saw on the caller ID it was Peter. It made her sick that his name had been put under sweetheart in her phonebook . Some sweetheart, she thought bitterly, wanting to hurl her phone across the room. She just barely managed to contain herself.
    As Noel stared at the phone and wondered whether she should pick it up or not, the cell stopped ringing and the message, "You've got voicemail," appeared at the bottom portion of her screen. After a remorseful sigh, she pressed the phone to her ear and then paused. When she heard Peter breathe, it stirred her