“Mr. Von Doren, Ms. Silverton, please prepare for takeoff,” Toby alerted us. We unraveled our hands to put on our seatbelts and didn’t even wait a nanosecond before interlocking them again. Annika gave me a squeeze, which felt like nothing in reality, but the impact was enough to make my heart skip a beat.
Neither of us said a word to each other while the jet was taking off from JFK Airport, holding hands in comfortable silence. Annika eventually directed her attention outside and stared out the window while I just stared at her. Everything about her was beautiful in my eyes, and I couldn’t believe she had made the conscious decision to join me. A part of me still expected her to vanish into thin air, only for me to realize it was an illusion all along.
“Mr. Von Doren, we have reached 20
