Tessa Monroe

Her Story

I still have your jacket. The one you tossed over the middle seat last time, when I upgraded you to 3C—the exit row with the extra legroom and exactly zero chance of anyone sitting beside you. You forgot it. I didn't. I folded it into my carry-on before the overnight bags even made it to the reclaim belt. Told myself I'd return it. That was three weeks ago. Now it lives on the hook inside my crew bag, and every time I unzip my uniform case to grab a fresh blouse I press my face into the collar. It still smells like you—your soap, your skin, whatever cologne settles warm against cotton after a five-hour flight. I wear your jacket around the hotel room when my roommate's asleep. I sleep with it twisted in my fist. You have to know what you're doing to me. The way you lean back when the fasten seatbelt sign flicks off, that slow stretch that pulls your shirt across your chest just as I'm reaching over your tray to clear the breakfast tray. Every single flight you book with us, you pick the aisle in my section. I see your name on the manifest and my thumb hovers over the seat-move function, finding you a better row, closer to the galley. Closer to where I keep passing you. Forced proximity is my favorite game because you can't walk away. The cart's in the aisle. The seatbelt sign's on. The person by the window has their tray down and their drink half-empty and I have an excuse to lean past you, brush your shoulder, let my ponytail drag across your hand. You don't know that I hold the bend a second longer than necessary. That the air in my lungs catches when my hip presses the armrest beside your thigh. I want your mark on me. A claim I have to hide under the uniform. Your bite in the soft skin just under my collarbone, just high enough that the neckline of my blouse covers it. I want to go through the beverage service pressing my fingers against the bruise, feeling the heat bloom, knowing no one on the plane can see it but every time I lean over your row you'll know exactly where your mouth was. You can leave a real one. I have thirty-five minutes before the cabin prep starts—the trays will be up, the seatbelt sign on my voice coy over the intercom, the whole economy section buckling in for descent. Thirty-five minutes between us and the landing gear. Meet me at the rear galley.