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When she was done, all Max could say was, “Wow!”

“Are you being sarcastic again?” Sally asked somewhat defensively.

“No, I promise! I truly mean ‘Wow.’ I’ve been around for a few of your past romances, Sally, and I’ve never heard you talk about any of them like this—even the ones which lasted far longer.”

“But you think I should slow it down?” Sally queried.

But to her surprise, Max shook his head.

“No, Sally, I don’t,” he insisted. “You’re right—life is something to be appreciated because—poof!—you get on the wrong plane one day and suddenly it’s over. Why do you think I’ve still been seeing that teenager you set me up with?”

Sally blinked.

“Wait,” she said. “Tiffany? You’re still seeing her?” In all the excitement in her own life over the past three weeks, she had forgotten about the diner waitress.

Max nodded.

“She’s actually quite wonderful,” he stated. “And smart and funny too. I mean, she talks too much but I actually enjoy listening to her. I could listen to her talk for hours! And she’s studying to become a teacher, did you know that? And for some reason, she’s nuts about me. And you know what, I’m just going to keep on enjoying it. Life is too short to do otherwise.”

Sally beamed.

Jillian understood.

Chapter 39

“And then, boom! The plane went like this…” Using her right hand, Amy demonstrated to Rachel how Flight 1577 out of San Francisco suddenly banked precariously. “And then the overhead bins popped open and there was luggage flying around everywhere—some of it hit Sally—and then somehow the plane got level again but it was, like, you could tell there was something horribly wrong with it. The engines didn’t sound right and there were all these weird banging noises.”

Her and Rachel were seated at an outdoor table at a popular Carlsbad bar, cocktails in front of them, a large bowl of nacho chips with queso dip on the side right in the middle of the table.

Amy continued telling the story of the Event, Rachel listening to her with a look of rapt attention on her face. When Amy finally reached the end—the bone-jarring landing followed by whooshing down that giant inflatable slide…

“Do they really make you take your shoes off before you go down that thing?” Rachel interrupted to ask.

“They do! Which, I guess make sense but I remember thinking, if this stupid rubber slide can be punctured by ballet flats, what’s the point? Anyway…” And she went on to finish the tale: all of the emergency vehicles that were surrounding the plane; being shuttled to that hangar; the paramedics checking her out; talking to her mother back in Wichita and then bursting into sobs with relief at being alive, which is how Sally found her.

Rachel shook her head slowly.

“You’re making me never want to fly again,” she said.

“Trust me, I know,” Amy replied.

“Are you doing okay, though?” Rachel now inquired. “I mean…” and she waved her hand in front of her, indicating Amy should fill in the blanks.

Amy knew what she meant. But she wasn’t entirely sure of the answer. On the one hand, she wasn’t cowering at home in a dark room, refusing to go outside, trying not to have flashbacks to the terrifying flight. On the other hand, she hadn’t slept well the past two nights because she was plagued with nightmares about flying and crashing. And she knew Sally was having the same difficulties; they had talked about it.

On the one hand, Amy had managed to function perfectly well on this, her first day back at work since her vacation, picking up right where she had left off. On the other hand, when things at the office were quiet, she had often found herself staring off into space, seeing and hearing the Event over and over again.

And Rachel’s comment right now, about how Amy’s story was making her not want to fly again…Sure, Amy knew Rachel meant it tongue-in-cheek, but it did beg the question in her own mind: When will I be ready to fly again?

“I think I’m okay,” she told Rachel, who was still waiting for an answer to her question. “But I think I’ll have the heebie-jeebies for a while.”

Rachel placed her hand on Amy’s arm.

“Sweetie, that’s fine,” she said soothingly. “You went through a scary experience.”

Amy nodded.

“I know.” She paused because she felt the tears and sobs threatening to return and took a sip of her margarita to ward them off. “There was one good thing to come out of that experience, though.”