Unteachable

by Leah Raeder

  I checked in and sat watching the planes glinting in the sunset, sleek painted steel against the fire in the sky. I listened to Sophie Barker’s cover of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” until I thought I was as sad as I could get, then switched to “Maps” and found out I could get sadder, and started laughing at myself, ridiculously, and then they called us for boarding.

  Okay, I thought, walking down the gangway. This is it.

  Goodbye, Rick. Goodbye, Captain Renault.

  Goodbye, Eric Evan Wilke.

  God, get to your seat without crying, Maise O’Malley.

  I was in the first row of coach, window seat. When I buckled my belt I thought suddenly of getting in the front car of Deathsnake and my eyes went blurry. I turned to the window, forcing myself to focus through my reflection. In the deepening twilight, the runway lights looked like the carnival fireflies that night in August, distance making them beautiful. Wish you were here. Someone took the seat next to me and I tried to school my face. God, the last thing I needed was people thinking I was crying because I had a bomb strapped to my chest. In a few minutes, I’d be getting the world’s best view of the only place I’d ever lived or loved, but I’d be seeing it all by myself.

  I could still smell Evan on my clothes, my skin, as if he was right here. I should have fucking changed.

  The captain got on the PA, announcing our flight like a movie. Tonight’s feature is the Rest of Your Sorry Life. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the window, wanting to drink in as much of St. Louis as I could, knowing somewhere out there, one of those infinitesimally small lights was him. I wondered if he’d look up and see the planes crossing the sky like shooting stars, knowing one of those lights was me.

  “You’re pretty brave,” the guy beside me said, “sitting up front by yourself.”

  The floor fell out of the universe. I was in freefall.

  I turned.

  All I saw was blurred gold, and a small, hopeful smile, and the haze of city lights through the window across the aisle, twinkling. I couldn’t speak. I could only contain the heart and lungs that were beating inside me, that filled my whole body until I was nothing but breath and blood.

  The camera zooms in on the shine of an eye, the tremulous quiver of a lip. He’s smiling but his eyes are wet. She’s crying but her heart is infinitely light. Background noise recedes. Music fades in, swelling.

  Spontaneously and simultaneously, they reach for each other’s hands.

  About the author

  LEAH RAEDER is a writer, designer, and unabashed nerd. She writes pretentiously lyrical YA and adult fiction of various genres. Unteachable is not her first novel, but it’s the first one that made her blush. She lives in Chicago with her boyfriend.

  Read more of Leah’s rambling on her website:

  www.leahraeder.com

  Stalk her on Twitter:

  @LeahRaeder