After picking up her luggage and checking it back in, Carissa looked at the screen that showed the gates and times for the departures. Detroit, MI, 5:30 p.m., gate C64 in terminal 2.

    She lugged herself and her backpack to the airtrain stop and stood waiting. The plane boarded at 5:00, and it was 4:45 already, but Carissa knew that she would make it onto the plane...there was no way that it would leave without its most esteemed customer.

    Once the train arrived, Carissa took her seat looking out the front window and used the opportunity to try to spot the New York skyline as the sun began to set. While big city living wasn't entirely her type (she preferred her mansion in a suburb), she still loved to see the lights of the cities. The possibility of romance and love never ceased to amaze her.

    In fact, the city was where Carissa had met Ethan, almost five years ago. It wasn't quite the romance novel-worthy meeting: they had met in June at her gym located in Chicago, instead of a random encounter on the street. She had complimented his abs, he had called her beautiful. He had taken her out to dinner after his workout and they had discussed life over sharing an extra-large deep-dish pepperoni and sausage pizza. He revealed that he was almost two years younger than her, a fact that made Carissa doubt his perfection for a little, and had recently graduated from the University of Oklahoma in sports medicine after competing as a football player for five years. He was hoping to take a year off before going to med school, hopefully at Harvard, he had explained. They had laughed and joked and even danced the night away, and when Carissa was forced to return to reality the next morning, they had promised to make the relationship work.

    So they had. Until six months ago, when Carissa had flown out to Chicago for his 25th birthday as a surprise and she had opened the door to his apartment, only to see him and another girl in just their underwear making out. He hadn't even looked up as she slammed the door and left. The other girl had looked as if she was some sort of model, and Carissa still couldn't get the image of her lacy red bra and messy platinum blonde fake curls out of her mind. When Ethan called her the next day, she had considered picking it up and yelling at him, but she knew that she would only get that satisfaction if she did it in person. So she had 181 unread good morning texts, 181 unread good night texts, and over 200 unread I love you texts. She didn't really care anymore.

    "Can I sit here?" a young girl, around nine, was looking at Carissa with her big blue eyes.

    "Sure!" Carissa smiled and scooted over, noticing the girl's Denver region swim championships T-shirt. "Do you swim?"

    "Yeah! I hope to one day be an Olympic gold medalist in freestyle!" The girl was bouncing in her seat just talking about it. "Sydney is my favorite swimmer! She only won silver in Paris, but I know she'll win gold this year!"

    Carissa laughed. "I don't doubt any of that." They chatted about swimming until the train stopped at Terminal 2.

    "You should come visit us someday!" The girl jumped off her seat and rejoined her parents.

    "I'll think about it," Carissa smiled and waved to the family. "Have a safe flight back to Denver!" But then she realized that she must sound like a stalker, since the girl had never said she was from Denver. She wanted to slap herself and almost did, before realizing how much worse that would probably make things.

    Gate C64 was at the end of the terminal, so it was past 5:40 when Carissa reached the gate. "Last call for Boarding Group 1," the flight attendant announced over the speakers. "We will now begin checking in members of Boarding Group 2." Carissa, flying business class, was part of boarding group 1, so she joined the line.

    "This says boarding group 4," the flight attendant, a young lady with glasses looked from the ticket to Carissa.

    "Wait, really?" Carissa looked down at the ticket, which said "economy class, seat 32B, boarding group 4." She felt her cheeks go red. "Sorry about that."

    Her travel agent must have messed something up, but she would have to live with it. She wasn't the type of person to fire somebody for one mistake. Plus, she liked her travel agent. He was in his early twenties, a little clumsy, and was late to appointments more often than not, but he also had a huge smile on his face and was super nice to talk to.

    Carissa walked to the tail of the line and stood and waited for boarding groups 2 and 3 to finish. Finally, when she got to the front again, the flight attendant laughed and said "you may go ahead this time."

    Carissa smiled back and walked down the long runway and entered the plane, greeting the pilot and the flight attendant waiting there. She then walked past the seven business class with a longing glance before passing the fancy curtain into the economy cabin.

    Row 32 was at the very back of the plane, right in front of the lavatories. To her right were seats A and B; C and D were to her left. She struggled to place her luggage in the overhead compartment, since it was already full, although there wasn't anybody currently sitting in seat A (a young mother and a little baby were sitting in seats C and D). Somebody had placed an ugly green and red suitcase that most certainly did not conform to any airline's carry-on standards, probably being two meters long. Finally, she got her backpack settled in the compartment and took her seat.

    Carissa wasn't a huge fan of the aisle seat; she much preferred the window and the ability to look outside, so she desperately hoped that nobody would show up to take seat A next to her.

    As she waited for the plane to finish boarding, she opened the airline's app to check if anybody had reserved the seat. It was shaded blue, meaning that somebody had, in fact, chosen the inconvenient row. She could only be curious.

    In her few remaining moments of solitude, Carissa opened the window and glanced at the scene of moving vehicles outside before sitting back in her seat, then untangled her earbuds and plugged them into her phone, starting her favorite swoonworthy boy bands playlist.

    She was finishing "The Story of My Life" when a tall masculine figure stood in the aisle next to her, analyzing the rack above the row. He had a slim but muscular build, curly hair dyed in a variety of blues, a light sprinkle of freckles, and piercing green eyes. His face was quizzical as he continued to wonder how to put his duffel bag into the rack without upsetting Carissa's backpack, the huge ugly suitcase, or the small suitcase the sleek woman sitting in front of Carissa had put up. She observed as he kept his weight mostly over the balls of his feet and had a light spring in his step...even when standing still. Eventually, he gave up and just tossed his bag on top of all of the other luggage in the compartment.

    Carissa pulled her earbuds out and set her phone on her seat but as she stepped into the aisle to allow him into the row, all four bags fell down, and she was able to grab the stranger and pull him to safety from the falling giant suitcase just in time.

    "Holy giant crapping unicorns!" He exclaimed, falling into Carissa, who fell into the sliding panel that led to the airplane water closet. Her head landed on the cold floor and he was almost nearly on top of her, his chest nearly aligned with hers.

    "You know, when I think a girl is hot, I don't usually try to kiss her in the bathroom of an airplane when her head is right by a toilet," he joked.

    "I usually prefer much more romantic circumstances as well," she replied, trying to sit up, but his weight was still on top of her.

    "Umm...right," he scrambled to get off, too, but his feet were touching the wall on the other side and the door frame was too skinny. Carissa heard the voice of a little kid ask "what are they doing?" and his parent replying, "nothing you need to know about."

    That cracked her up, and soon the giggles erupted from the man as well and they were both running out of breath.

    "What is going on back here?" the flight attendant demanded, looking between them and the luggage on the floor. "This is a new type of misconduct I haven't seen before in my fifteen years of serving as a flight attendant," she had a hint of a smile on her face and extended her hand out to the man.

He took it, grateful, and stood up. "Sorry about that," he flushed, extending his hand to Carissa. She ignored him and pushed up from the ground, only for her hand to slip on a slippery puddle of who knows what.

"I'll leave you two to it," the attendant turned around and started to put the luggage back on the rack, struggling with the large suitcase, and a man got up from his seat to help her.

With some struggle, Carissa was able to stand up, then go back into the bathroom and wash the liquid off her hands with the tiny sink. When she returned to her seat, the man was already seated. "I'm really sorry about that," he apologized.

She laughed. "It's totally fine. We always need a little something to spice up our lives, right?"

He smiled. "I guess so."

"You're much nicer than the man I had to sit next to on the last flight, anyhow," she flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. "I'm Carissa, nice to meet you," she held out her hand to shake.

He shook it. "Bentley."