The Chaos of Standing Still

by Jessica Brody

  The tall airport cop lets out a chuckle. “You crazy kids. You get out of here.”

  Baffled, I look between Xander and the officer. What just happened here? Did Xander put some kind of mind-bending spell on the authorities? Ten minutes ago these guys wanted my head.

  “Well, that’s just fucking perfect!”

  “Don’t worry,” Xander whispers conspiratorially to me, as if reading my mind. “I took care of it.”

  I’m about to ask how when someone yells behind me. I spin to find Claudia, a phone pressed to her ear, pacing the length of the office lobby. She ends the call and throws the phone across the room. The pudgy officer catches it expertly with one hand. He barely even flinches, giving me the impression that this is a normal occurrence.

  “There’s a fight over a power outlet at C22,” Claudia barks, waving dismissively at the two guards. “Go deal with it.”

  They nod and sprint out of the office, hopping onto their little golf cart and zooming off.

  “And you two”—Claudia turns her tired, blue-gray eyes on me and Xander, who I notice has sidled up to me, standing beside me like some kind of unified front against an insurgent army—“promise me I won’t see you in this office ever again. I don’t have time for this shit. The airport is about to shut down, and I’m about to have three thousand angry passengers pointing pitchforks at me. As if the storm is my fault. I don’t have room in my schedule for rowdy teenagers.”

  “I promise!” I rush to agree without thinking. But then something she said stops me cold. “Wait. What do you mean the airport is about to shut down?”

  She tosses a hand impatiently toward the window. “I mean shut down. No one leaves. All flights canceled. One big fucking slumber party. La-di-DA.”

  In a panic my head whips in the direction of her office. I gaze past all the shambles of debris on her desk and toward the window. Toward the storm.

  “No,” I argue foolishly. “It’s just delayed. The flights are just delayed. The board says so.”

  She gives me an odd look, and it’s then I realize that I haven’t actually seen a board in quite a while. Xander and I were in those train tunnels without phone reception for nearly an hour.

  Suddenly, the white tempest on the other side of the window starts to infiltrate my vision. Cloud my mind until I can’t see. I dig my fingertips into my temples, trying to stop the room from spinning. Trying to stop my brain from screaming.

  Lottie’s blood.

  Everywhere.

  Blood everywhere.

  Staining everything.

  Cracked skull.

  Cracked glass.

  Clock flashing 10:05 a.m.

  10:05 a.m.

  10:05 a.m.

  “I can’t!” I blurt out. “I can’t stay here. I can’t be here tomorrow. I have to get home.”

  I’m not sure what I expect my pleas to do. Change her mind? Stop the storm dead in its tracks? Turn back time so I can insist Dad buy me a nonstop flight?

  “What do you want me to say?” Claudia asks with just the faintest hint of genuine remorse. “Sometimes Mother Nature wins.”

  Tackled in the End Zone

  As soon as the large bank of information screens are in sight, I race toward them. Xander is close behind me, trying to keep up. “I’m so sorry about what happened,” he’s calling after me. “I swear I thought you were right behind me when I ran out of the train.” I don’t respond. I haven’t spoken a word to him since we left the airport office, and I don’t intend to start now.

  My eyes drink in the data like a thirsty desert traveler, swallowing each flight number and then plunging back in for more.

  Boston, MA

  1240

  4:45 p.m.

  CANCELED

  Detroit, MI

  541

  3:50 p.m.

  CANCELED

  Ft. Lauderdale, FL

  3672

  4:02 p.m.

  CANCELED

  Miami

  211

  3:32 p.m.

  CANCELED

  San Francisco, CA

  112

  3:31 p.m.

  CANCELED

  My heart climbs into the metal vise that’s been waiting patiently in my chest and straps itself in, surrendering to its fate.

  Canceled.

  How can they just cancel a flight? I bought a ticket. I paid them money—or rather my father did—and that creates a binding agreement. I give you money, you take me somewhere. Somewhere far away from here. Somewhere that feels as safe as one could possibly feel on the first anniversary of her best friend’s death.

  “Death!?” Lottie screeches into my ear. “I’m DEAD?”

  I ignore her. I don’t have time for her comedy routine right now. I have to find a place to hide. To retreat inside myself. To disappear. But how do you disappear in a place like this?

  Of all the locations I ever imagined spending New Year’s Day, a busy, crowded airport full of people, like spectators at a gladiator match just waiting to watch me break apart, was not one of them.

  Who gets hit by a drunk driver on New Year’s Day? That’s supposed to be the safe day! The end zone at the end of a long stretch of dangerous, enemy infested territory, where no one can tackle you anymore.

  They all tell us. They drill it into our heads. They demand promises from us. No driving on New Year’s Eve. That’s when the dangerous monsters are out. That’s when people get hurt. That’s when teenagers lose their lives.

  No one warns you about the morning after, though. No one thinks the danger is still lurking then.

  But Lottie was always different. She was always an exception to the rule. I guess it’s fitting that her death be an exception too.

  I glance desperately around me, looking for a private corner or an empty space, but they’ve all been filled. These people—these stranded passengers—they’re like a plague. A virus. They keep multiplying and spreading and filling in all the little gaps and crevices, consuming every available space until there’s nothing left. Until this entire airport is just one giant red blob of disease.

  Any system, if left unattended or isolated, will eventually result in chaos.

  And I’m here trapped in the middle of it.

  Three intrusive beeps blast over the intercom system, catching everyone’s attention. Everyone around me stops whatever they’re doing and stares up at the ceiling. As if they’re waiting their next directive from a higher power.

  “Attention, all passengers. Attention, all passengers. This is Claudia Beecher, operations manager of the airport.”

  I grimace. Not her again.

  “This is an important announcement for all passengers and airline and airport employees. The FAA has ordered that, due to severe weather conditions, all flights out of Denver be grounded. As soon as it is safe to fly again, airlines will be rebooking passengers on alternate flights. While we realize this is not ideal, it is our job to make sure you are as comfortable as possible. The airlines are doing everything they can to issue hotel vouchers to passengers. Please check with your airline’s customer service desk to obtain one. For those of you who remain in the terminal, blankets, pillows, and water will be distributed in all gate lounges. Meal vouchers will be provided by your airline for use at any participating airport restaurant. Restaurants will remain open late to accommodate everyone. We ask that you kindly remain calm and courteous to one another. As soon as we have additional information about the weather conditions, we will make a subsequent announcement. Thank you for your attention.”

  I can’t feel my fingers. I can’t feel my toes. Has the blizzard broken through the windows? Am I already frozen?

  “Looks like we’re both trapped here for a while,” Xander says, and I startle. I forgot he was behind me. But the sudden reminder sends a hot lava river of anger coursing through me.

  “And whose fault is that?” I snap, whipping around to face him.

  He flinches. “Um, what?”

  “This is your fau
lt. This is all your fault!”

  Xander looks like I’ve just slapped him. “Wait. WHAT? How could a snowstorm possibly be my fault?”

  “Because you—” I hesitate, feeling frustrated. My rational side is a muffled, kidnapped prisoner in the back of my mind, screaming through a gag, trying to tell me that the flight cancelation has nothing to do with him. But my irrational side—the one that landed me in a weekly session with Dr. Judy, the one I didn’t even know I had until my best friend’s brains got splattered across a flashing clock—rules me with an iron fist. It pilots me. And it knows if I just search hard enough, I’ll find a way for the pieces to interlock. I’ll find a way to blame him for everything.

  “Because the train!” I try again. “And your stupid game! I don’t even like surfing! She wanted me to go surfing, and I said no! I said NO! But then you had to pressure me into it. You and Lottie! You both think you’re so damn clever. And then you just left. You just left me! And the police! Airport police! And handcuffs! And fake citrus chain-smoking! And it’s all your fault.”

  I realize I’m no longer making sense. I’m like a slot machine that never pays out. My reels keep spinning, trying to match up three pictures in a row, trying to find words that string together into a coherent sentence, but I just keep losing.

  Always losing.

  Xander blinks rapidly, undoubtedly thinking I’m crazy.

  Well, good, it’s about time he knew the real me. It’s about time I stopped pretending to be someone else. Because, look where that got me. Arrested by the airport police.

  “Hold on,” Xander says, raising his hands in the air. “Back up. Who’s Lottie?”

  My hand flies to my mouth. The movement is instinctual. A knee-jerk reaction. I want to take it all back, suck it back in, press rewind. But it’s too late. It’s out there. She’s out there, hanging between us like an acid-filled water balloon that no one can catch. It’s about to explode everywhere. Burn through our skin. Singe a hole right through the floor beneath our feet.

  I quickly weigh my options. There aren’t many. I choose the obvious one.

  I run.

  “Tell me about January first, 10:05 a.m.,” Dr. Judy said at our last session before I left to visit my father in Atlanta. It had been a little over nine months since my sessions with her had started, and by now we’d adopted a relaxed rhythm. A functional coexistence. She was like a tennis pro, serving up easy shots, and I was the student, recognizing the balls’ trajectory and speed and lobbing them back without much effort.

  I’d learned just how much I had to say to appease her and just how little I could get away with.

  I shrugged and fingered my phone case. “It’s when Lottie died.”

  She nodded, tapping her pen against her bottom lip. “It’s coming up soon.”

  “Yes.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “Sad,” I tell her, confident it’s the right answer. Then, for good measure, I add, “Angry.”

  “At Lottie?”

  “At the guy who killed her.”

  “What about Lottie?”

  “What about Lottie?”

  “Are you angry at her, too?” Dr. Judy asked, planting her shovel in to the dirt and giving it a firm stomp with her foot.

  “It’s not Lottie’s fault the guy was plastered at ten in the morning and got behind the wheel of a car with faulty brakes,” I said.

  Dr. Judy’s sessions were the only time my rational side was allowed to come out. Ungagged, released from the closet, paraded around for the world to see. Like the well kept prisoner in a ransom video. See? Alive and well. We’re even feeding her.

  Dr. Judy teetered her head from side to side, reminding me of one of those bobble head dolls. I was afraid she was going to challenge me. She did that sometimes. She poked and prodded at Rational Ryn, making certain that she was real. That she wasn’t just a blow-up doll full of hot air. But, to my relief, instead she asked, “Do you have any plans for the day?”

  “Yeah,” I replied snarkily. “I’m going to drive to the mall and wait in the middle of the intersection for a drunk driver to hit me, too.”

  Dr. Judy gave me a blank stare, waiting for me to take the joke back. I bowed my head apologetically. “No, I don’t have any plans.”

  I didn’t tell her about my intention to sit in my room with the lights off and the shades drawn, counting the seconds until the day was over. That wasn’t Rational Ryn behavior. Rational Ryn would visit Lottie’s grave site, bring flowers, dab at her eyes with a white hankie. Rational Ryn would erect a marble bench in the park with Lottie’s name inscribed into the stone.

  Rational Ryn would cry.

  “What I meant was, how do you intend to manage that day?”

  “Manage?” I repeated skeptically. It sounded so cold and clinical. A word that belonged in a corporate board meeting. A word Lottie would have hated. Especially if she knew it was being used in reference to her.

  “Yes,” Dr. Judy replied. “I think we should talk about your management plans. If you come up with a coping strategy ahead of time, you’re much more likely to avoid unwanted . . . episodes.”

  She let that word hang in the air. Knowing it needed no other explanation. We both knew what she meant. We both knew the episode she was talking about. It had happened a few months ago. At school. If it had happened anywhere else, I might have been able to avoid telling her. But teachers talk to principals and principals talk to parents and parents talk to therapists.

  Then therapists ask why you locked yourself in a supply closet for two hours because of a number of a clock.

  “I’m not going to have another episode,” I assured her, even though the words felt swollen and misshapen in my mouth. It was amazing how good at lying I’d become in the past eleven months. How accustomed I’d grown to those misshapen words.

  “So seeing 10:05 on the clock doesn’t bother you anymore?”

  I felt my throat start to sting. I swallowed incessantly until the heat cooled. And when I was certain that my voice wouldn’t break, I said, “No. It doesn’t bother me.”

  I can hear footsteps behind me but I don’t slow. I can’t be sure those footsteps aren’t just my imagination. Lottie’s ghost chasing after me through this crowded, claustrophobic airport.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Lottie slides into my head. “I don’t have to chase you. I go where you go.”

  Don’t remind me, I think, and she responds with a gasp followed by offended silence.

  “Ryn!” a voice calls from somewhere in my wake. It’s Xander. He’s following me. But I still don’t slow or turn around. I need air. I need space. I. Need. To. Get. Out.

  I pass the airport office and avert my gaze, praying that Chain-Smoking Burnt Citrus Claudia won’t exit the doors just as I run by.

  She doesn’t.

  I do, however, pass the kissing couple from the train. They’re riding one of the moving walkways, and they’re back to yelling at each other. I don’t linger long enough to catch what the fight is about this time.

  I sail by a lone TSA agent sitting at a desk, practically falling asleep into his hand. On my left is a sheet of glass that separates me from a security checkpoint, which means I’m leaving the supposed “secure” part of the airport and entering the wild frontier. Where no one is safe.

  I keep running. Down a long sloping walkway until I’m in the main terminal. It’s big and open and bright. The ceilings are so high, I have to crane my neck to see the top. They rise into tall peaks, giving me the illusion of being trapped inside a snowcapped mountain.

  I have the option to go left or right. I pause and swing my gaze in both directions. There are people out here, too. So many people. Always people.

  Where are they all coming from?

  Don’t they realize I need to be alone?

  “So now you run,” Xander says, coming to a stop next to me. He rests his hands on his knees, panting. “And here I thought I was in shape.” He pivots his head and
looks up at me. “Where was all this running when I told you to run?”

  Ignoring him, I turn my head to the right and stand on my tiptoes in an attempt to peer over the sea of heads. I can just barely make out a door in the distance. It appears to be leading to the outside. Away from one storm and into another. I sprint toward it. Somewhere behind me Xander groans.

  I dodge people and bags and children. I nearly slip on a slick spot on the tile floor. Before long, I reach a small, heated vestibule.

  That’s when I screech to a halt.

  The only thing that stands between me and the outside now is a clear glass door marked with the numbers 612. It glides open with a whoosh, as if to say, “Go ahead, Ryn. No one is holding you back. No one is keeping you here like the prisoner you think you are.”

  Everything hits me at once. The cold, the snow, the wind. They slap me violently in the face, like I’m an unruly, fainting damsel in an old black-and-white movie. Smack, smack, smack!

  My skin burns. My eyes try to adjust. I can’t even see five feet in front of me. The blizzard is too thick. It’s a wall. A wall of moving, breathing snow. The wind is so loud, it boxes my ears.

  A second later the door slides shut, like it’s given up on me. I can hear it laughing in my face. “And you thought you were so brave.”

  Then someone is beside me. I don’t have to look over to know it’s Xander. I’ve started to recognize his energy. The way it affects me. Riling me up and calming me down at the same time.

  His presence triggers the door again, and it opens majestically, giving me a second shot.

  Go, I urge myself. You can do it. It’s just a little snow.

  But that’s the thing. It’s not just a little snow. It’s never just a little snow. It’s never a small storm. It’s always a fucking tempest. A total whiteout. Where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Where every step might be the one that takes you right over the edge of a cliff.

  Another gust of wind rises up, blowing a bucket of frozen flurries into my face. I instinctively jump back and then glance down to see my shoes are covered in a fine, white powder.