This is a Love Story by Jessica Thompson

was looking at him, holding my hands. It struck me for a moment that this immature man might actually be able to take control of a situation, might help me.
    ‘I know what to do!’ he said, reaching into the glove box for a tissue. He quietly worked away, dabbing the blood from my palms and pressing new tissue onto them to make the bleeding stop. He wrinkled his eyebrows in concentration. I felt like my heart had slowed right down. Something in the depths of my soul shifted and moved. I didn’t know if it was the aftermath of embarrassment or the eye-wateringly early hour that had left me feeling a little emotional. But with each sweep of that tissue, it felt as though he was touching my heart.
    I had felt the rush from a boy before. That twinge of teenage horniness you feel when you kiss some stranger in the darkest corner of the nightclub, or the lift you get when a good-looking man buys you a drink at a bar. This was different. I felt like he was creeping into my heart and there was nothing I could do to stop him. I had only met him a few weeks ago, I thought he was childish and bruised, but still these feelings persisted.
    I was trying not to let it happen, I really was. Everything about the situation was inappropriate and difficult. I worked with him. He was older than me. It was an embarrassing crush I could never really admit to. There were so many reasons, other people, that were stopping me from being with him. And why would he even give me a second glance, anyway? I suspected with a face like his that he was a ladies’ man, that he must have women scrambling around to be a part of his life. I wondered if he knew what he was doing to me. I don’t think he did.
    As the plane started to lurch forward, I dug my nails into my palms and flinched when I felt the sharp pain of my cuts.
    ‘You OK, Si?’ asked Nick, turning his face towards mine, a lovely expression of concern dancing across his features.
    ‘Yeah, of course. Why – are you scared?’ I jeered, poking him in the arm to deflect attention from my own crumbling state of mind.
    ‘No, no, of course not! Just checking you weren’t going to freak out or anything,’ he added, with a frantic hand gesture that made an air hostess giggle as she walked past. He was so animated, his face capable of such incredible expressions. I wouldn’t even know how to find the words to describe some of them, but I knew what they meant when I saw them.
    The familiar smell of foil-sealed food filled the space around us as the aircraft built up speed. My stomach jumped as it started to lift, bouncing along the runway slightly as it launched itself into the air.
    Please don’t let go , I thought to myself, making a little order to the plane as it gripped onto the sky, wondering how my home life would be affected by my absence, and how my permanent absence would be a disaster. I bit my lip hard, and flexed my fingers. My head was full of images of the pilot swigging neat whisky behind the instrument panel, and the co-pilot smoking crack. Tears were beginning to form in my eyes. For God’s sake, it wasn’t even 8 a.m. and I had nearly cried twice. I was a wreck.
    ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ Nick turned towards me, his eyes wide. He looked a little concerned and reached out an index finger to my face, swiping a single tear away with expert precision and balancing his thumb on my right cheek so he didn’t poke me in the eye. My breath caught in my throat. He looked a little surprised at what he’d done.
    ‘Gosh, Si, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t . . .’ he said, as my tear slid off his finger and onto his lap. ‘I think it’s the claustrophobic spaces thing. It makes me go a bit funny,’ he went on, looking down at his feet.
    ‘No, no, no. I’m definitely fline. I mean, fine.’ I looked at him with my fake ‘everything’s OK’ expression, my cheeks turning red again.
    He glanced at me suspiciously before turning his eyes towards the window again. The plane