This is a book idea I started a while back. I was wondering if people could help me out with something I'm worrying about. I'm wondering if the trust that Josephine Carmichael uncovers for Elroy Gray happens to suddenly by the end of it? Does she start talking too openly too quickly if you take into account the fact that she rarely speaks her mind, and when she does she speaks quietly and usually only to people she trusts fully? Does their relationship here move to quickly, did I rush the character development here, should I start further back in their lives to first put the characters into place?
Theses are just a few questions you might keep in mind while reading if you plan on giving me feedback afterwards. Would really appreciate the help! Thanks :)
Let's get to it then! Enjoy!:
CHAPTER ONE:
His cup of
water was handed to him by a slender, well-manicured hand with red-painted,
perfect nails, attached to an arm that was attached to a shoulder, attached to
the body of the uniformed stewardess strolling down the aisle with the refreshment
cart. The flight thus far had been a peaceful one in second class seats, the
three on the right near the middle of the section, by the wing. Each seat was
occupied by a person, each person in each seat had a story, and each story had
a beginning but no defined end.
Elroy Gray
watched the flight attendant closely as she handed him his water and then
leaned over to the other side of the aisle to ask the other passengers for
their desires. She was pretty and confident in her job. She regarded him as
just another passenger on another flight. That was just fine.
The man on
his right, large, overweight, was snoring heavily, sleeping soundly, and had
been for the last two hours. Gray’s patience rewarded him well here. The young
girl on the other side of the obnoxious sleeper, by the window, was the person
that he was most interested in calculating at the present.
His gaze
drifted towards her, almost subconsciously. She looked exactly the same…
~~~
The hum of
the plane was constant. It was probably one of the reasons she’d never been
able to sleep on a plane. But aside from that, what disconcerted her the most,
was the man two seats away who wouldn't stop glancing at her with those
emotionless blue eyes, staring without shame as though calculating her worth.
If it weren't for his silver-like hair and clean-shaven pointed face, she never
would have actually noticed him in the first place. Aside from the colour of
his eyes, this man staring at her from two seats away on the long flight down
south looked exactly as she had always pictured her father. He was the ideal
man, in appearance, of the father that she’d never had.
Josephine
Carmichael always did this in places with lots of people. She surveyed every
face that passed her by, and eventually found the ones that looked like her
“ideal parents”. This was the first time she’d ever noticed a man who fit her
standards so perfectly. It was hard not to stare right back at him, and it was
definitely impossible to go to sleep with him right nearby.
She didn't know why she did it; picked people out from a crowd whom she would describe as
parent-like, but it was old habit, and habits die hard. It was unreasonable of
her. She was only bringing more pain upon herself this way. She had to get over
every person she saw who fit her standards enough, and these people always
brought up unwanted emotions in her that she had a hard time getting rid of.
Josephine
glanced furtively past the large, snoring man next to her to look at the ideal
father figure on his other side another time. He was dressed between formal and
casual in dress pants and a gray jacket over a red button-up shirt with a
collar. His shoes weren't altogether fabulous, but they went nicely with his
ensemble. He looked very official that way.
She looked
quickly away again when his eyes seemed to turn towards her again. Supposedly,
she had no right to be bothered by him staring at her when she was also staring
right back at him, but the implications of a man staring at a young woman were
much more numerous than those of a young woman staring at an older man.
Josephine
forced her gaze out the round window by her head. She couldn’t see much past
the wing of the plain by blue sky, and perhaps some rolling waves far down
below. She needed to focus on why she was on this plane in the first place, she
needed to forget her obsession with ideal parent figures and slap herself back
into reality, back into the world she lived in, had always lived in, and would
always live in, where she had no parents, and no siblings, and no family to
care for her; she was on her way down south on this plane because the
headmaster of the orphanage was kind to her and thought that an experience
outside of her daily life and land would do her a lot of good. She was made out
to be a mopey, depressed, and dark person in general, even though this wasn’t
entirely true. She did not have a bright personality, but one shouldn’t
exaggerate. She was on this plane for a new experience, she needed to forget
her old habits for the time being…but it was difficult to forget them with such
a perfect match sitting so close by, even if she’d probably never see him again
after getting off of the plane in South America. She would probably end up
being distracted by the thought of him for a long time after this was over.
The flight
attendant was passing back with the cart after having passed through once
already. The father figure had received a water from her but Josephine hadn’t
asked for anything. As she was passing by their seats, the father figure
stopped the stewardess and murmured something to her. She smiled and eventually
handed him a second cup of water even though he still hadn’t finished the first
cup from before. As she backed away with her cart, the father figure turned in
his seat and held the second cup out to Josephine, over the snoozing
middle-man. He offered Josephine a slightly amused smirk.
“Juice up.
You should keep hydrated,” he said quite simply.
Josephine
didn’t know whether to be surprised or offended, but she chose surprised and
accepted his offer with a nod.
“”Flying by
yourself?” he enquired. Was he just curious or did she have the right to be
suspicious of him?
“Yeah,” she
answered quietly after taking a sip of water, “You?” she found it difficult to
look at him now that he was talking to her.
“Yeah,” he
seemed at as much of a loss for words as she was. Either that, or he was just a
naturally quiet person – like she was. And she wasn’t sure what the reason was,
but he gave off a pleasant aura of sorts, in his tone of voice, his amused
smirk, and his mannerisms that she’d taken note of so far. She liked to think
that he looked trustworthy.
“I’ve been
sent away on a vacation,” she found herself saying to him, with a hint of a
smile at the memory of the headmaster telling her it was time to get out of the
city.
“You too,
huh? I didn’t think you were old enough to be told to go take a vacation. I get
told to every month, but I’ve never agreed…”
“You’re out
on business, then…” Josephine noted.
“You got
family down in Santiago?” he asked her. She shook her head. She supposed she
should have thought of this kind of situation beforehand, what with her
travelling alone, but she didn’t usually talk to strangers. When she did and
they asked her about family, if she told the truth they usually portrayed expressions
of pity and said they felt sorry for her. She didn’t like hearing those words,
seeing those faces, so she didn’t like talking about it. But she didn’t have a
solid cover-story in place and she wasn’t sure what to say to him.
“Just a bag,
some cash, and a hotel room with my name on it,” she smirked sheepishly. She
wasn’t telling him the name of her hotel, now, was she? And unless he followed
her, it wasn’t like it was a problem. She wasn’t being naïve now, was she?
“Well, if
you’re just trying to get away, I guess that’s the way to do it,” he shrugged.
“What about
you, here for a business opportunity or money issues?”
“You could
call it both, but I prefer to think of it as criminal justice,” he clanked
overhead for a moment and then back across in her direction. She smirked.
“You’re a
cop?” she asked, though it was closer to a statement than an actual question.
“Federal
Agent,” he shrugged with an affirming nod.
“Sounds…exciting,”
Josephine decided with an arched eyebrow.
“It has its
moments,” he smiled, and then watched her thoughtfully with narrowed eyes, “Now
tell me, what would a person like you be doing, going to Santiago on your own
like this? It doesn’t seem like the situation is…natural. I’m curious now; you
don’t look like a regular working citizen taking some time off because your
boss told you to.”
Josephine
regarded his question carefully. He wasn’t exactly trying to pry, in a sense.
He was a Fed, so he was bound to be good at extracting information out of
people. And it wasn’t like she was hiding anything in particular or doing
anything illegal. She also had a feeling that if she told him of her
circumstances, he wouldn’t give her that look that she hated so much. She felt
like she could trust him not to disappoint her in that way.
And she was
right.
“The
headmaster of the orphanage I live at sent me out to clear my head,” she told
him, quite honestly and bluntly. If he was surprised, he didn’t exactly show
it. He only nodded and then looked up the aisle a ways, seeming thoughtful.
“You could probably
use the time,” he said after a moment. She’d been right to trust him, and
because she’d been right, she smiled. She wasn’t exactly in a situation where
one would normally smile, but she couldn’t help herself. He was, after all, the
ideal father figure; not that it would matter in the long run.
“In your
orphanage, is it co-ed?” he asked her after another pause. It didn’t surprise
her that he would ask about her lifestyle, and for once, she felt almost
comfortable enough to talk about it normally.
“Yeah, co-ed,
with the sleeping quarters separated for the girls and boys into two different
buildings on campus,” she was already thinking back to the girls’ dorm, to the
cramped quarters and the pillow fights on hyper nights…it was, in general, a
decent place. Temporarily. Living there for a long time was not ideal. It still
had nothing over a real family lifestyle.
“Your Head
sounds like a nice guy…” the father figure said to her. The father figure…it
seemed a little ridiculous to think of him that way after talking to him for a
while.
“He is,”
Josephine smiled a little fondly. Everyone loved the old man, the headmaster,
who was so much more lenient than any of the other staff at the orphanage, “I’m
Josephine, by the way,” she finally said, turning to him with an air of
friendliness that she hadn’t had the chance to use up until now.
“Agent Gray.
But you can leave out the Agent,” he assured her. She grinned, but slowly
adopted a more serious expression.
“Agent Gray…I
think I’ve heard your name somewhere before…or at least, a mention of it…”
Josephine frowned. The connection seemed to be in her grasp, but…she shook her
head and sighed, “I can’t remember where though.”
Gray
shrugged, “Wouldn’t expect you too. I’m not a big fan of the media, so any
mention of me would be scarce.”
Yeah…just a
random mention in the media.
The seat-belt
light flashed on overhead and the pilot’s voice interrupted their thoughts over
the com to introduce a turbulent leg in their flight.
The first few
bumps were the usual, no big deal, a little troubling, but nothing out of the
ordinary. The second wave cut out the lights overhead, leaving nothing but the
windows on the sides illuminated. Even the seatbelt and no-smoking lights
turned off. With the next hit of turbulence, the hum of the plane changed its
tune and an alarming sensation in the stomach was felt by most passengers
conscious of the changes.
Agent Gray
looked nearly ready to jump out of his seat and head up to demand an
explanation out of the pilot. His eyebrows had already arched into a slight
frown and he was very concentrated on staring up the aisle towards the front.
Josephine had
never imagined her entrance to the south this way. Her brain had a way of
blocking things out, traumatic things, things she didn’t want to experience
again, and it seemed that that was exactly what it was doing then and there.
Before her conscious mind could fully process the details of what was about to
happen, her subconscious shut down anything that would allow her to recall the
even at any time in the future – if she did indeed survive long enough to try
and remember anything.
Through
blinks of light and fuzzy images, from the sounds around her that she heard as
though she were submerged underwater, she knew that she must have managed to
follow the emergency procedures indicated. Lifejacket. Check. Exits. Check.
The man
between her and Agent Gray had awoken at some point and he was also, albeit
frantically, following the flight attendants’ instructions.
Descent…water…no-fuel…malfunction…Screams,
wails of “I don’t want to die”, panicky whimpers.
This was how
Josephine would remember her entrance into South America. High levels of
turbulence, bumps, squeals of distraught passengers all around, the distinct
lurch and landing in the water of the Pacific Ocean. The sound of a voice, a
distinct voice shouting in her ear, and then the sensation of a firm grip on
her right bicep pulling her down the aisle to the exit.
Fresh air hit
Josephine’s face like a wake-up call, unexpected and somehow refreshing, just
as she was sliding down into the rolling waves of the Pacific. With the cool
air and the cold, cold water lapping up against her and soaking her to the
bone, it became excruciatingly difficult for her to lapse back into a
nonsensical state. Her mind was in a state of utter panic. She realized,
hardly, in the back of her mind, that she was having a panic attack while in
the Pacific Ocean with nothing but a lifejacket to keep her afloat next to the
body of a supposedly malfunctioned plane. Heart pounding, breathing unstable,
hyperventilating, there was no way for her to control the way her body was
reacting to her situation.
“Snap out of
it, Josephine!”
Even over the
rolling waves, the voice was back. It was the same voice, she would soon
remember, that had gotten her out of the plane in the first place. It was the
voice that had kept her alive.
“Land’s that
way!” he was hollering above the sound of the sea, just so that she’d listen,
and she was listening. Her panic attack was gradually calming, her heart rate
slowing, her breathing evening out as much as their situation warranted, “Come
on, Finn, swim!”
He was only
about an arm’s length ahead of her. The word “swim” triggered her body to
follow him, to make her way in the direction that Agent Gray was leading – the
direction that everyone seemed to be going in.
Maybe she’d
missed something about it in her state of delusion.
The whole
way, Agent Gray remained only an arm’s length ahead of her, swimming just ahead
to point the way and just close enough to keep her following with morale
support. She wasn’t a strong swimmer, but she was swimming. She didn’t have
high endurance, but she was enduring. If Agent Gray hadn’t been there, she most
certainly would not have made it. Her will to survive wasn’t exactly her
strongest point, but he made it her only point as he drove her along to land.
He didn’t seem ready to let a plane crash be the
end of either of them. She was glad she had ended up talking to him in that
seat, on that plane, even after the thought that she didn’t usually talk to
strangers.
