At passport control, Matt and Lina stood entwined for what felt like hours, whispering things to each other and touching each other’s hair and faces and laughing softly. I looked down at my hands, and in between studying my fingertips and wondering if I had time for a cigarette, I felt something spark to life in the pit of my stomach. A feeling that wasn’t new but I hadn’t let myself acknowledge before. A memory of something that had never happened.

‘You okay?’ Lina asked, as Matt walked off.

‘I think so.’

‘Good.’ She pulled a bottle of water out of her bag, had a sip and handed it to me. ‘We can’t take it through.’

I took it, sipped slowly, my eyes flickering over all the people, going to all the places. Most of them in suits and ties but some in sundresses like Lina and me. Some in cargo pants and Birkenstocks with giant backpacks and matted hair, so at ease that I wondered if they ever went home.

‘You know, you’re safer up there than almost anywhere.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s loud. Nobody ever tells you it’s loud but it is. And sometimes it feels like there’s not enough air for all the people, but there is.’

I laughed. ‘I’ve been on a plane before, Leen.’

‘Of course you have,’ she said. ‘But in case you’d forgotten.’

It was loud. I had forgotten how loud.

It was loud and it was busy and chaotic and small, but mostly loud. I couldn’t hear myself think, and maybe that was a good thing. When Lina gripped my hand during take-off it was harder than it needed to be, but when I looked over at her she was frowning and had her eyes closed and her chest was rising and falling and I realised that maybe she was terrified too.

Maybe we all were, and for some reason that thought made it easier to breathe, and when I squeezed her hand back it was as much for her as it was for me, and then we were up there, floating in the sky, and I kept thinking about all the ways it could go wrong, all the times it had, but when Lina grinned at me, her face full of excitement and joy, the risk seemed worth it.

We landed funny, or maybe it just felt that way. The wheels of the plane bounced a little too hard on the tarmac and as they did my heart jumped into my throat. I glanced at Lina and she looked so happy, and I wanted to be happy for her—for me—but my breath stuck in my chest. Something felt wrong.

‘We’re here, Caitie,’ she said, nudging me to stand up. ‘We made it.’