Changing Course

“What are you thinking about?” Brian asked Stacy as she peered down at the big, white puffs of overflowing water vapor cast against the vast, scattered blue light.

“Huh?” Her head turned to him. “Oh, nothing. Just admiring the view…is all.”

Brian smiled, covering her hand with his over their shared arm rest and squeezing gently. “So am I,” he said and nervously chuckled at the cheesy line.

The corners of her mouth stretched as a line far back and slightly lifted.

“Cookies, chips, or pretzels?” the flight attendant seemed to appear out of nowhere with her cart, drawing the couple’s attention.

“Oh, we’ll have pretzels,” said Brian. “Thank y—”

“Actually, can I have some chips, please?” Stacy interjected.

“Yes, sure,” the attendant replied and scooped the requested bags from her box, handing them to the couple.

After Stacy thanked her, she pushed her cart down on to the next row.

Brian smiled towards his girlfriend, his mouth slightly parted, with curiosity.

“What?” Stacy asked as she pulled open her bag.

“I thought you love pretzels?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Well, I did…a while ago. But I kinda got tired of them. If I have the option for something else, I’m definitely going to go for something else.”

“Huh,” Brian said sharply. “Well, ya learn something new every day!”

He opened his bag, and Stacy’s head turned back toward the window, looking down at the white puffs again.

He stared at her for a few moments as he put one of the twisted salty snacks in his mouth.

“Hey, babe?” he said through slow, crunchy chews.

“Huh?” she asked, her gaze not moving.

“I need to run to the bathroom real quick. Be right back, okay?”

“Oh yeah, okay,” she said.

Brian folded the top of the little aluminum bag and unbuckled his seatbelt. After he stood and placed the bag in the empty, aisle seat beside him, he headed to the back.

Stacy briefly turned and glanced in his direction, before returning her attention to window view.

**********

“I had to wait for someone else to finish before I could go in,” Brian said to Stacy when he returned a few minutes later.

As he sat in his seat, he noticed it wasn’t the expected smooth, flat leather he was expecting upon landing.

Springing up to see the source of the bulky sensation, he saw that it was Stacy’s purse and the book she brought to read. He looked over at her as she now laid back with her eyes closed against the headrest.

He moved her purse and book into the neighboring seat with his bag of pretzels and settled alongside her again.

After a few more moments of getting readjusted, Brian gently called out to her.

“Babe?” he said. 

“Hmm?” she faintly replied.

“Babe??” he called with a little more volume.

“Hmm??” her volume also rose, with her eyes still closed.

“They came by with drinks?” he looked down at her opened Sprite can and a cup of ice beside it, with some of the beverage already poured in.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I didn’t know what you wanted, so I figured you would just let them know when you got back,” she shifted in her seat to get more comfortable.

“Oh,” he said flatly. “Okay.”

He looked at his watch. 2:07pm—two-and-a-half hours left on the flight. He sat for a few more moments, not yet re-buckling his seat.

A grin slowly crept into his lips as he reached into his pocket. 

“Hey, babe?” he said again and was only returned with silence.

“Babe??” he repeated, gently shaking her hand.

“Huh? What, Brian?” she asked, clearly annoyed, as her eyes slowly opened.

She wasn’t sure if this was a dream. A big, bright sparkle prominently appeared in her view.

The twinkle shone from the light-grey suede box nestled comfortably in the shared cup of Brian’s increasingly sweaty palms.

Her eyes widened as they gradually traveled from the twinkle in the box, up to what appeared to be a twin twinkle in the forest-green eyes of the man before her—forest-green eyes that, themselves, were wide and lifted by raised eyebrows. They hovered over a mouth also open wide and lifted, with nearly all 32 on full display.

“Hey,” he said, short of any other words at the moment.

He stood and kneeled before her on one knee in the extra space of their emergency-exit row.

As Stacy’s own mouth hung open in a growing oval, she slowly sat up in her seat, clenching both armrests, as if the door she sat beside had suddenly flung open, leaving her hanging on for dear life and trying not to slide out. 

“Stacy,” he said. “I love you. I’ve loved you almost since I first saw you at that coffee shop that cold, rainy day two and a half years ago, and you let me buy you a cup of hot chocolate, to help warm you up. Well, you’ve been warming up my heart ever since.”

Stacy looked around, trying to gauge if her life in this moment was the only one on the verge of such dramatic change. 

It did seem so, as everyone nearby seemed to casually indulge in their unspectacular everyday human activities. Some were heavily engrossed in their phone or tablet device, as others napped. One or two read a book, while several others watched a movie on the screen embedded in the seat in front of them.

“You manage to bring more light to my brightest days and even light up my darkest nights. You make life so much more fun, enjoyable, and interesting. I’ve never loved anyone nearly as much as I’ve loved you, and I know I never will again. I never want to. I only want to continue to…if you let me…”

“Brian…” Stacy finally willed her voice to get out.

“Oh wow, look! I think he’s proposing!!” a teenage girl pointed to them from the other side of the aisle. The man seated beside her, with a slightly textured, more rugged version of her face, along with salt-and-pepper hair, followed her gaze, and his eyes grew in similar excitement.

Just then, the woman with reading glasses and a head full of grey seated diagonally in front of the couple also looked back to see what was all the commotion.

“I’ve never been happier or more in love,” Brian continued. “And I only want that feeling to go on, and to grow—only except for one change: you becoming Mrs. Brian Ellis Davis.”

“Awww,” gushed twin red-headed elementary-aged girls who had turned around and were propped on their knees, staring down at the couple from two of the three seats in front. 

“Girls! Stop that!! Turn around!” scolded their matching-red-headed mother seated beside them, as she tried to covertly take her own peek through the compact mirror she slid out of her handbag.

“I don’t want another day, another minute, another second to go by…without you as my wife. Or at least my wife-to-be,” Brian nervously chuckled. “For now.”

Stacy’s mouth began to move again, but no other sound yet came out. Brian stepped in again before it did.

“Now, I know, I know this is a little unconventional — proposing to you during a freaking plane ride,” he looked around, “with all these people—these strangers—around, tens of thousands of feet high in the sky. I’ve actually thought a bunch of times how I was going to do it. I almost did at your parents’ house last week! But I chickened out. And I’ve been carrying this with me, waiting for the right time, ever since.”

He stared into Stacy’s eyes more intensely.

“And as we were sitting here just now, I got to thinking: I really don’t want to set foot back on earth…without finally having you as my bride-to-be. And I figured I’d ask the question while we fly over the big, beautiful ocean down there,” he looked over at the window, “And let you know I will never let anything come between us, even something as huge and wide as the sea!”

Brian briefly parted one hand from the box to pinch his eyes as they began to mist.

“Seriously…” he went on. “How high we are up here right now symbolizes how I high I always feel when I’m with you and even when I just think of being with you. And as I feel more high now, in this moment, than I ever have, I very happily, very humbly ask if you’ll agree to be my wife. So, with that said…” he said as his toothy smile reached its peak brightness.

“Stacy Michelle Parker… Will you marry me?”

The unique sound of the plane whooshing through the air outside at several hundreds’ of miles an hour suddenly dominated, as all nearby ears were fully on deck, anxiously awaiting Stacy’s response.

The flight attendant even slowed to a stop as she was on her way to return the snack and drink carts to the back, her eyes as wide and her mouth stretched open and upward as far back as it could go, right along with nearly everyone else’s.

Nearly…everyone else’s.

“Umm,” said Stacy, as she looked around at all of the surrounding strangers’ eager, hopeful faces.

“Girl, you betta go ahead and say yes!!” a man shouted to a few chuckles as he leaned forward with his partner on the other side of the aisle three rows behind.

Brian appeared frozen, his face still with the same glee as it’d started with and that box again nestled snuggly, seemingly almost cemented, in his cupped hands.

“Yes,” Stacy said.

The cabin instantly broke out in a roar, everyone hugging those they came with and even some fellow passengers they'd just met.

Brian slipped the sparkling twinkle on her left hand, in between her pinky and middle finger, and then leaned over to give her a kiss, which initially proved to be a bit difficult, given how far back his mouth still was and with his teeth still on full display.

Hoots and hollers drowned out the plane’s airy soar. Some of the other male passengers reached out and pat Brian on the back, while the women and girls each congratulated Stacy.

Amidst the celebration, a crackle suddenly interrupted and pierced the joyful fuss from overhead. 

“Uhh excuse me, passengers,” the aircraft’s pilot blared through the speakers in a serious tone. “We are experiencing a bit of turbulence…”

The cheerful energy among the crowd settled down, and the excitement on their faces slowly fell to wonder and inching concern.

He continued. “I’ve been told that there’s a happy couple in row 14 whose lives just got a bit shook up with some wonderful, exciting news!!”

Everyone in the cabin exhaled, laughed, and reignited their roar—this time, even more than before, as more on the plane became aware of what was going on and joined in on the excitement, including some who had been awoken from their sleep due to the commotion.

“We here at HiFly Airlines just want to say ‘congratulations’ to the happy, soon-to-be-wedded couple and wish you a great life together full of the utmost happiness and love!!”

Brian was giddier than he could’ve imagined. He had already been excited enough that this was finally happening—that he’d finally proposed and they were finally engaged—but the energy and excitement of this crowd full of strangers put it even more over the top. With his face so sweaty and rosy, he was elated, and his grin now might’ve looked like it was permanently implanted. 

He squeezed his new fiancée’s hand a little more firmly than before and sat back in this seat, still lovingly gazing at her.

As Stacy still sat upright, she looked back at him, her lips sealed together and lifted.

Gradually, all their excited, congratulatory neighbors settled back into their purposefully distracting mundane activities, and Brian re-buckled his seatbelt and settled in again as well. He exhaled a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if what’d just happened was the overwhelming delusion of a strong marijuana hit.

A feeling of joy greater than any he’d ever known, he felt almost dopey.

Stacy soon also laid back in her seat, her eyes now wide awake and fixed squarely on the embedded black screen in front of her.

Brian’s eyes opened again and glanced over at her, noticing her odd position and stare. “Are you okay, babe?” he softly chuckled. 

“….Babe?” he said again and jiggled her hand after it seemed like she hadn’t heard him.

She turned and looked at him, wild-eyed, as if she could only guarantee she was physically present at the moment.

“Are you alright” he chuckled again. “In shock? I know this is a lot—“

“I’m fine,” Stacy finally said, as she gently pulled back her hand, sending Brian’s eyes in its direction.

For the first time since he’d come from the bathroom, the luster in his face glacially began to dissolve.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you alright? It seems like something’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” she replied. “I'm fine.”

“Uhh…” he said, “Well, it doesn’t look like ‘nothing,” and considering we just got engaged, I would think we’d both be a little bit more than ‘fine’—”

“Why did you do that?” she blurted out in a whisper.

Brian paused for a few moments, trying to process the question. “Huh?” he finally asked.

“Why… did you do that?” she asked again and looked away.

“”Wh— Why did I do what? Propose to you during this flight? Well, like I said before, I had been wanting to do it for a while but just hadn’t had the chan—”

“No. I meant… Why did you…” her eyes dropped to the floor.

As she trailed off, the possible thought slowly began to creep into Brian’s brain. “Propose at all?” He felt a growing dismay at the harsh prospect of that being what she meant. “You wanna know why I proposed…at all?”

Stacy sat silent.

Brian’s eyebrows bunched. “Wh— Didn’t you want me to propose?” he asked her. “Don’t you want to get married?!”

The airy hum outside once again took center stage between them.

“Stacy!” he exclaimed right above a whisper.

“We never talked about it,” she finally said.

“What? Yes, we did.”

“I mean, maybe months ago, but that was…then.”

“Wha-?! So… You’re saying you don’t…want to marry…me?”

The space filled with another long stretch of silence.

“Stacy!” he said, this time raising his voice just enough for a few sets of nearby eyeballs to briefly spin towards their direction. Feeling them, Brian lowered it again. “Stacy. I mean, I don’t even know where this is coming from. You-…you changed your mind, or… Or what?” 

A million thoughts ran through Stacy’s head as she tried desperately to find the ones she could say out loud.

“Do you still even want to be with me—in a relationship with me—at all? his voice cracked with a hint of emotion, and for the first time in several minutes, she looked up at him again. 

“Oh my God,” he said and slumped back.

He buried his face in his hands.

“Brian…” she said softly and leaned towards him.

He looked up at her.

He then briefly surveyed around them and noticed everyone heavily engrossed in their respective uneventful personal activity—watching, scrolling, napping, reading—wondering if his life was the only one in this moment on the verge of such dramatic change. 

“I love you,” she said, “I do, but…”

“‘But’ what?!?”

“But… I’m not…in love…with you,” she forced out the words, as they felt like dragging an anchor through a tar pit.

His face scrunched, it still rosy and sweaty—now in a different way.

“Wha—?” he said, leaning back. “Bu—but… I don’t understand!”

Stacy sighed.

“Brian… You’re a great person—you really are, but… I haven’t been happy for…a while. And I thought…maybe that had been pretty clear—maybe even that you’ve been unhappy, too, in seeing it—but…I guess not. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and feel like I just really need to…focus...on ‘me' again. And I’d been trying to figure out the best time…to…”

Brian’s anguished eyes widened, as she sighed again.

“I’d finally worked up the nerve to have…this conversation with you…on our way there. You wanted to know what I was thinking when I was looking down at the clouds earlier? That I didn’t want to get back on the ground…with things with us still…”

“Hey again, folks!” the pilot’s voice sliced through the moment, and Stacy’s eyes darted up to the ceiling, while Brian’s didn’t move from staring out at nowhere in particular. “Okay, I know I was joking a little earlier, but please make sure your seatbelts are fastened because we’re in for some real turbulence this time. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but don’t worry, we have just a little two hours left until we reach our destination. And we will be there before you know it…”