April 17, 2018

Eliska turned her attention from the airplane window to her father, who was slightly reclined in the seat next to her. He was asleep, exhausted due to the slew of business meetings he had attended in Miami. They were heading home, expected to land in Indiana in roughly an hour.

She decided against turning on the overhead light to read so her father could rest and settled for getting her phone out of her carry on. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been on it.

She took her time, eventually ending up at the Instagram app. Her eyes immediately flicked to the small red circle in the top right corner of the screen, indicating a message in her inbox.

She snorted when she saw Jonah Marais' username on display.

After staring for a few seconds in empty disbelief, she clicked on the tab, opening the message.

Hey, Eliska

She shook her head as she looked at it. Then she saw the date at which he had sent it and almost laughed out loud. Six days ago.

Anyone else would have responded to him the second he messaged them, but she didn't even see it until six days afterward.

She looked over the two simple words for awhile longer before turning her phone off and setting it in her lap. She moved her gaze back to the view outside the window, of night lights from cities below peeking through the expanse of clouds gently reflecting the light of the moon.

She truly had believed that seeing Jonah a week before would be the last time, but he had reached out to her.

He had reached out to her....

She wasn't aware of how much time passed, caught up in the scenery of the world beneath her, thinking about the possibilities of what could happen if she answered him.

The future was impossible to know or understand or even guess about, but she decided that she was okay with that.

She picked up her phone, typed out her message, and pressed send.