I don’t know why I’m always in my head. I’m in my head so much, that I’d rather be there than interact with other people. I have an entire movie playing out about how my life should be and no matter what it looks like on the outside, I live it the way it is in my mind.

My most recent ex boyfriend told me that the world didn’t revolve around me, which I found so offensive because in my mind movie, it definitely does. I dumped him right after.

Who the fuck did he think I was?

I looked up and saw the gate agent peek his head in the boarding door. As I made my way past the passengers who were shoving their bags under the seats and in the overhead bins, I was stopped by an arm that darted out to get my attention.

“Are you all tryin’ to cook something in here?”

I rolled my eyes in my head.

How hard is it to just say you’re hot?

“Are you hungry?” I asked with a smile.

The bald businessman glared at me.

“Who controls the heat?”

“I just turned it down; it should cool soon.” I smiled.’

“Good.” He snapped, and then started typing away on his tablet.

Continuing to the front of the plane, I saw the gate agent peak his head back in and then out again when he saw me coming. When I reached the door, his face was serious.

“Ms. Louis.”

“Yes?” I asked looking back and forth between him and a scrawny white girl with glasses.

She was in her early twenties, but he had her standing in front of him like she was a student being presented to the principal for bad behavior.

“This is Miss Bradbury.” He explained. “Miss Bradbury was having some trouble understanding the policies and procedures of our airline.

I hoped that my face hadn’t changed, but I wanted to laugh. I bet both of my eye brows had raised a little.

What could this tiny little white girl have done to get a personal escort from the gate agent to the plane? She looks like a catholic school student.

“She understands now,” he continued “and she’s in seat 10c.”

He looked at her to make sure that she was still complying and under control and then his tone of voice became sterner.

“If she gives you any trouble before we pull this jet bridge back, you let me know and she’s coming off.”

“Ok.” I agreed.

My tone was neutral. I didn’t know what she did to him, but she hadn’t done it to me, and I knew how rude the gate agents could be. They were rude to me too. I turned my attention to the girl.

“Welcome.” I smiled.

She glared at me without speaking and walked past me to find her seat.

I peeked my head into the flight deck to brief the captain on our passenger just in case she was a problem. He had already heard because he was facing me and then he whispered out of one side of his mouth.

“What was that about?”

I giggled. “There’s a young lady on our plane that must have given the gate agent a hard time. I was instructed to let him know if she gave me a hard time before takeoff and they are going to take her off.”

“What she do?” He whispered.

“I don’t know,” I leaned in, “I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I didn’t ask.”

He nodded in understanding. I looked over at the empty seat beside him.

“Do we have an FO?” I asked.

I didn’t notice until then that I hadn’t met the first officer, and we were almost finished boarding.

“Yes, he’s here.” The captain informed me. “He stepped out to do the walk around.”

“Ok.” I smiled.

I walked down the aisle, counted passengers, helped a few people stuff their bags under the seat and answer the normal questions about connections and if there’d be a drink service on the flight.

I looked up and felt an instant tug at my soul as I locked eyes with the FO. I watched as his eyes went down and then came back up to meet mine again. I nodded and gave him a half smile then walked into the galley to get away from his gaze.

His complexion was medium brown. He wasn’t very tall, but he had a stocky build. His face looked extremely young, and his features looked like maybe he was from an african country.

“Hello.”

Why would he follow me into this galley?

I put the cd back in the case and turned to greet him.

“Hi.” I spoke.

He smiled. He had big straight white teeth and his eyes looked friendly when he smiled.

“I must have missed you earlier,” He put his hand out to shake mine, “I’m Christian.”

Why did Christian have to have an accent? Why?

“I’m Chanel.”

“Nice to meet you, Chanel.”

“Nice to meet you too.” I looked down at my shoes, and then remembered I was at work and I couldn’t be shy. I looked back up.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked pointing to the galley.

He smiled and slowly shook his head no.

“Are you on this trip for the whole four days?” He asked.

God help.

“Yes.”

“So am I.” He stated.

Just then, the captain saved the day.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like to welcome you onboard…”

As he continued his welcome announcement, I excused myself with a smile and made a clean get away; at least for the moment. This was just the first flight of our four day trip.