She holds on too long, and he lets her, and neither of them knows how rich they are.
I stand where the carpet changes color, the line no one is allowed to cross without a ticket, and I watch the last thirty seconds of them. His duffel keeps sliding off his shoulder and she keeps pushing it back up, patting it flat, an excuse to keep her hands on him.
He is looking at the boarding sign because looking at her is harder. She says the thing about texting when he lands. He says he will. They have said it a hundred times and it means, both times, I cannot bear the size of this, so here is a small task instead.
Then the real thing. She puts her face into his neck and I remember, all at once and unbearably, what a neck is. Warm. A pulse under the skin. The particular smell of a person you have memorized without trying. She is annoyed, I think, at the gate agent hurrying them, at the crush of strangers, at the flat announcement voice.
She would not believe me if I told her these are the good parts. The waiting. The being kept apart by nothing worse than a schedule. The knowing exactly where he is going and that a machine will carry him there and bring him back.
He walks down the jetway. She stays at the window until the plane pushes off, one hand flat on the glass, feeling the faint cold of it.
Feel that, love. The cold glass, the ache in your hand, the whole heavy day ahead of you. Feel every dull minute until he lands. Please.
It is all so much.