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And it became even more of a certainty when, once more, the plane dropped in freefall.

More screaming. More gut-wrenching mid-air maneuvers.

This is it!

Amy gripped her hand. Sally looked at her. Their eyes locked together. Amy’s were as wide as they could possibly be and tears were streaming from them. Sally also knew she was crying.

It was so noisy in the cabin that Sally knew speaking was pointless. The whining roar of the engines combined with the various bangs and knocks combined with the screams, cries and prayers of their fellow passengers was deafening. And so Sally tried to convey with her eyes what she wanted to say.

Thank you for coming into my life.

Thank you letting me stay in yours when I told you I wasn’t Jillian Ashley.

Thank you for helping me feel a special kind of joy again.

Thank you for making me feel more alive than I ever have.

We belonged together!

You were meant for me and I was meant for you.

Maybe we’ll have eternity together?

And Sally was certain that Amy was receiving her messages! That perhaps, somehow, these moments of heightened and pure fear had managed to activate some dormant telepathic ability in her girlfriend’s brain, giving her the ability to “hear” Sally despite no words coming from Sally’s mouth.

And as Sally sat there, tears streaming down her cheeks, staring into Amy’s eyes, miraculously she felt her own brain activate its telepathy function and—rather peacefully—Sally began listening to the messages Amy was sending her…

Chapter 35

Thank you for being with me here at the end.

You have no idea how magical I think our time together has been!

You gave me so much happiness.

You made my heart soar each time I looked at you!

I start missing you after five minutes apart.

I think you were the One.

Maybe that means we’ll see each other on the other side.

Amy was straining her mind to transmit these messages to the woman sitting next to her, wanting to believe that somehow the words were really traveling through the few inches of empty space between her and Sally.

Thrillingly, she started believing that! There was understanding in Sally’s eyes! And Amy noticed this just as she suddenly gained the superpower of being able to translate each tiny movement, each miniscule flicker of Sally’s eyes, and turn them into words she understood!

She opened her mouth to speak, knowing she’d have to yell over the incredible noise in the cabin, but then the plane did yet another one of those rollercoaster-type dips in the sky and Amy’s eyes squeezed shut and she yelped out.

Oh, fuck! It’s about to happen!

What would she feel at the end? Would there be pain? Would she suffer? Or would she simply be snuffed out?

How much longer did they have? Minutes? Seconds?

Were they about to slam into a mountain or crash into the sea? Were they over a city or above farmland?

How long would it take to inform her family of her death? Her parents were also on a trip—to Wichita to visit Amy’s grandmother. She had told them that she was going to San Francisco but hadn’t provided much in the way of details concerning her flight information. For all they knew, she was either already back home in Carlsbad or still in Frisco. How long before they learned their only daughter was dead?