Io

The bag was not going to fit.

I knew this. I'd known it at the gate, watching other passengers slide their carry-ons into the overhead bins with a confidence I did not possess. Mine was overstuffed, zipped under protest, packed in twenty minutes while Nolan sat on his couch and said, "I think this is for the best." The best. As if our relationship ending was a wellness retreat.

I shoved the bag upward. It caught on the lip of the bin. I shoved harder, angling my shoulder under it, and felt the whole thing tilt backward toward the aisle just as the flight attendant's drink cart rolled into range.

A hand caught it. Not mine.

The bag stopped mid-fall, held by someone in 7C who'd moved faster than anyone should on an airplane. He guided it into the bin, one smooth push, and clicked the latch shut.

"Okay, wow," I said. "Impressive reflexes. Thanks. Are you a baseball catcher or do you just rescue clumsy strangers on planes?"

He turned, and I got the full picture. Dark hair. A navy henley pushed to the forearms. Blue eyes, the specific blue of deep water where the light still reaches. A dimple appeared when he smiled.

"Mostly rescuing strangers. Baseball rejected me when they found out I only catch luggage."

"And he has a sense of humor." I dropped into 7A, gesturing broadly. "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the hero of Row 7."

The flight attendant's smile twitched. Not amused. I'd almost destroyed her cart and was now doing stand-up. I stopped noticing the dimple. Told myself I stopped noticing the dimple.

"I'm Dash."

"Io."

"Like the moon?"

"Like the myth. My mother was a classicist."

His handshake was firm and brief. Seat 7A. Window. Business class on an ANA 787, the overhead lights dimming to a blue meant to feel calming. Eleven hours to Narita. I had a conference, an article I didn't want to write, and a suitcase full of clothes that all looked the same.

"First time in Tokyo?" he asked.

"Second. You?"

"I live there." A pause. "Lived. Going back to sign papers."

"Sign papers sounds suspiciously official. Should I be picturing a dramatic inheritance or a very polite divorce?"

Why am I like this? Three cups of Americano before a long-haul flight. My mother always told me I should keep some comments to myself.

"Yeah," he said. "Divorce."

Slight sadness in his expression. Not dramatic. The kind that's settled in, found a place to live.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was the right call."

Eleven hours to Narita, and I'd already made a fool of myself. The flight attendant, Yuki according to her name tag, reached our row with the drink cart. I ordered wine. He ordered the same. She poured with a perfect tilt, forty-five degrees, minimal fizz, and I watched because I watch things. Can't help it. Never could.

"So what brings you to Tokyo?" he asked. "Besides the conference you don't want to attend."

"That obvious?"

"You said it like someone describing a dentist appointment."

"I'm a journalist. I'm supposed to write an article about the physiological effects of long-haul flights on the human body. How our cells lose track of time when we travel too much." I took a sip of wine. "Very boring stuff."

"My cells lost track of time before I got on this plane."

"Jet lag from where?"

"Berlin. Three days of client meetings, then straight to LAX." He tipped his wine toward me. "My body thinks it's four AM in a country I don't live in anymore."

"You could be my case study."

"Does this mean you'll be taking notes while I nap?"

"Maybe."

"Do you plan to travel a lot for the story?"

"I'm used to being jet-lagged. Lost cause since Iceland."

"What happened in Iceland?"

"I lost track of time. Three weeks of reporting in a cabin with no signal. It felt refreshing, though. I didn't miss my fiance once." The word landed before I could soften it. Past tense, present wound. "Ex-fiance."

He didn't flinch at the correction. Tilted his head. "What did you miss?"

No one had asked me that. Not my sister, not my editor, not my therapist I'd stopped seeing because she kept asking questions I didn't want to answer. Everyone asked about the relationship. No one asked about the absence.

"The work," I said. "Being inside a story so completely that I forgot I had a life outside it."

"That's either dedication or avoidance."

"Can it be both?"

He almost smiled. "In my experience, it's always both."

The hours dissolved. At hour four, the plane shuddered. My hand shot to the armrest and landed on his. I yanked it back. He didn't say a word. But his pinkie inched half an inch closer to mine.

Of course I noticed. Detachment my ass.

Yuki delivered blankets with a smile that didn't reach past her teeth. I smiled back the same way. She definitely hated me. The cabin went dark. The baby in row 12 performed a twenty-minute crying opera. The guy in 14C snored like a broken motorcycle.

Dash talked about a museum he'd designed in Osaka. He was an architect, had spent six months studying how light filtered through a particular grove of bamboo so he could trap it in glass. I told him about bioluminescent algae in the Maldives, the ocean glowing blue at night, standing at the edge of it and thinking that some things are better witnessed than explained. For once, I felt like I didn't need to curate myself. He listened. He asked questions. Not interview questions, the kind that circle toward a thesis. Real ones.

I fell asleep with my forehead against the cold window. When I woke, the captain was announcing our descent into Narita. Dash was asleep beside me, his face unguarded in the reading light.

There you are.

The thought arrived before I could examine it.

The wheels touched down. Cabin lights went bright. The intercom chimed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Narita International Airport."

I unbuckled my seatbelt. Reached for my bag.

Then the seatbelt sign dinged on.

The engines spooled up. My luggage was back on the floor beneath the overhead bin, exactly where it had been before I'd tried to shove it in.

An electrical feeling ran down my spine.

The captain's voice came through the speakers, warm and rehearsed: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard ANA Flight 91, nonstop service from Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita."

The flight attendant was in front of me with her cart, waiting. The same flight attendant. The same cart. The same moment.

And I had heard this before.