Such a Rush(80)
Author: Jennifer Echols

That’s when I knew. The pressures of business and the sadness of death remained with him. But he could forget them for one night, for prom night, and worry only about how to get me alone, like a normal high school senior. Grayson would be okay.

I smiled and squeezed his hand. “I can’t wait.”

The prom theme was “Up, Up, and Away!” Instead of Superman decor, blue streamers looped through the rafters of the gym to look like sky. Sparkling white clouds hung down, plus cutouts shaped like hot air balloons, blimps, and airplanes. Even the prom photo backdrop had a 1950s aviation theme, like the inside of an airport bar in Hawaii. I had a weird feeling of déjà vu. It all seemed a little too perfect, like the prom had read my mind. Then Grayson explained that Alec was the student council president and the head of the prom committee. Of course he was.

I hoped someday I would look back at my prom photo with Grayson, vintage airline posters in the background, and laugh at how it had predicted such great things to come.

Late that night when the crowd started to thin, moving on to other parties, Grayson whispered that we would leave soon, but there was something he needed to do first. I sat on the bottom row of the bleachers, directly under the silhouette of a 737. Glad to get off my high heels for a minute, I happily watched Molly and Alec slow dancing and making out. They both half grinned as they kissed like they were really enjoying it. This was not how Alec had kissed me at all. He’d been holding out on me, which made me smile too. I was glad what he and Molly had found together was something special.

As I scanned the shadowy crowd, I spotted Grayson. He was dancing and talking with an elderly lady. Someone had told me earlier she was their high school principal.

“Leah!” Nance exclaimed, sliding onto the bench beside me and dragging her boyfriend, Ralph, with her. “You’re all Grayson’s talked about this week. I can’t believe he left you alone!”

I nodded to the dance floor. Nance slapped her hand over her mouth. Ralph laughed and swore.

“I take it Grayson and the principal aren’t close?” I asked.

“Not hardly!” Nance exclaimed.

“They’ve spent a lot of quality time together over the last four years, if you know what I mean,” Ralph said. “He’s gotten sent to her office at least once a month. To see them dancing together is truly bizarre.”

As he said this, the principal and Grayson laughed together like friends, as if all of Grayson’s transgressions had happened a long, long time ago, when he was a child.

“Speaking of bizarre,” Ralph said, “Nance and I have been dying to ask you something.”

I eyed them warily. “Okay.”

Ralph held both hands out flat, like he wasn’t sure how to put this. “Ever since their brother died, and then their dad died, Alec seemed to hold himself together pretty well. Grayson didn’t.”

“He’s been lost,” Nance added, watching me sadly.

“Depressed,” Ralph said.

“Gone,” Nance said.

“And now he’s back.” Ralph extended his hand toward me. “How did you do that? What did you do?”

“Listened.” I shrugged. “Understood.”

The song ended and a new one started. Couples shifted on and off the floor. Despite the movement, Ralph and Nance continued to stare at me like they were waiting for the rest of the story, but I’d told them all I knew.

“Well, please keep doing it,” Nance said finally, “because he’s like a new person.”

Grayson came toward me from the darkness. As he stepped out of the crowd, colored lights played across his wavy hair and handsome face, disappearing against his black tux. With a grin like a promise, he reached for me.

As I put my hand in his and let him pull me up, I murmured to myself, “So am I.”

“Seven-thirty-seven,” Grayson said. “Yours someday.”

My heart pounded and I squeezed his hand as the massive airliner seemed to head straight for us. But it was pitching into the sky by the time it screamed overhead, giving us a glimpse of its white underbelly. We both turned around in our lawn chairs to watch the gorgeous plane until it disappeared into the dim early-morning sky. We could still hear it.

After Ish’s party and Steve’s even better party, Grayson had driven us here to the industrial complex near the Wilmington airport, at one end of the runway. In the dead of night, in the cab of his truck, we’d finally gotten our delicious time alone. I was still smiling at the thought of it.

He’d planned ahead. Now we sat in our chairs in the truck bed, holding hands under a blanket against the wet chill, watching the first flights take off.

He sighed with satisfaction and relaxed his hand around mine. He’d gotten as much of a rush from the plane as I had. Then he nodded toward the horizon. “Sunrise.”

An intensely pink sun, striped by purple clouds, peeked over the trees. It was so small and weak that I hadn’t noticed a change in the light yet, but I knew it was coming.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “I shun the light. I probably look like I’ve been fooling around in my boyfriend’s pickup.”

“No, you—” He turned to smile at me. His eyes lingered first on my crumpled prom dress, then my hair. “Well, maybe.” He let go of my hand under the blanket, wrapped his arm around my shoulder, and pulled me closer. “I hope we stay together for a long, long time. I’ll never get used to looking at you.” He kissed me gently.

At first I had trouble kissing him back because I was smiling so hard. Then his other hand moved under the blanket, sliding across my dress. My body was right back where it had been half an hour before, giving itself to his and taking anything he wanted to give in return.

After a long kiss, he drew away, sighing again, sounding and smiling exactly like he had after the airliner buzzed us. Then he looked up at the sky. The blue had deepened from the grayish hue of first light. “I wonder if Jake did this at the end of his prom night.”

“Did his girlfriend like flying?”

He laughed shortly. “No.”

“Yeah. I think this is perfect, but after prom night, most girls would rather watch the sun rise at the beach.”

“That’s so strange.” His fingers traced a pattern on my bare shoulder. “I’m very lucky, and I will never forget that, I promise.” In the middle of this declaration of love, his voice trailed off. He was distracted by the hum of a small airplane. “Cessna Corvalis.”