Every Time I Veered Away, I Could Never Settle Down

A deafening roar tore through the cabin as the plane spiraled out of control, plunging from thirty thousand feet.

Amid the chaos and absolute despair, my phone screen suddenly flashed to life.

To my disbelief, the incoming video call was from myself, eight years ago.

On the screen, a younger, radiant version of me smiled, her eyes sparkling with hope. "Charlie is about to propose to me!"

"He promised that no matter how late it gets, he will always come to bring me home. He said he would never make me wait a single minute!"

Watching my past self while surrounded by the blood-curdling screams of doomed passengers, I felt a crushing weight in my chest.

The words do not marry him remained choked in my throat.

For eight years, I had landed three hundred times, and not once did he show up to meet me.

Yet, he had gone to the airport three hundred times just to pick up Cynthia, his precious childhood friend.

On the screen, my younger self eagerly pressed, "In eight years, Charlie must have completely spoiled me like a princess, right?"

I let out a bitter, hollow laugh and cut the connection.

The screen reverted to the last text message from Charlie.

"Just wait at the airport for another two hours. I will come get you right after I drop Cynthia off."

Staring out the window at the dark, swallowing ocean rushing toward us, I let my tears fall freely onto the glass screen.

Eight years, and you finally agreed to pick me up. But Charlie, I am never landing again.

The screens at the maritime search and rescue center glowed through the long night.

I drifted invisibly at the front of the room, watching the familiar flight number on the monitor flicker from yellow to a lifeless gray.

The operators worked in a frenzy, checking and rechecking the passenger manifest.

"Hurry! Have we contacted Norah's family yet?"

The heavy sound of Charlie's footsteps suddenly echoed from the corridor.

Seeing the weeping, panicked crowd, he knit his brows in annoyance.

On the screen, the flight status had officially updated from Delayed to Signal Lost.

Frustrated, he dialed my number.

"Norah, what kind of drama are you pulling now?"

Floating in mid-air, I looked down at my translucent, spectral body.

Then I looked at the milkshake in his hand, which happened to be Cynthia's favorite flavor.

I smiled sadly. He was always like this, even his half-hearted attempts to appease me carried the traces of another woman.

I touched my chest, surprised that a ghost could still feel such a dull, aching throb.

"Charlie, wait up."

Cynthia, wrapped snugly in Charlie's designer jacket, jogged in to catch up with him.

"I am so sorry. This is all my fault."

She bit her lower lip, her voice trembling as if she were on the verge of tears.

"If you had not insisted on driving me back to the city first, Norah would not have had to wait at the airport."

"Do you think she got so angry waiting for me that she deliberately changed her flight to make a point?"

Charlie stopped and instinctively pulled her closer to protect her from the bustling crowd.

"It has nothing to do with you, Cynthia," he said, his tone softening instantly.

"She is just naturally jealous. I already texted her that I was on my way."

"Now she is playing hard to get by turning off her phone. She is really pushing it this time."

For eight years, it had always been like this.

The moment Cynthia shed a single tear, all my genuine hurt was dismissed as childish tantrums.

On the rescue center's main display, the red flight number had turned completely gray. Around us, family members sobbed in agony.

Charlie stood in the middle of the room, looking slightly unsettled.

An anxious official walked over, clutching a tablet.

"Excuse me, are you the family of Ms. Norah?"

Charlie nodded quickly. "Yes, I am her fianc."

He hesitated for a second, then added, "Her phone is off. Why is her flight showing as missing?"

The official looked up, meeting his eyes with gravity.

"Sir, the aircraft encountered severe turbulence while passing through a thunderstorm. We have confirmed that the plane crashed into the ocean."

The entire hall fell deathly quiet. The annoyance on Charlie's face froze solid.

"Crashed?" he repeated, unable to comprehend.

He shook his head and took a deep breath. "Are you kidding me? Would she really go this far and fabricate a plane crash just to get me to apologize?"

"I have the right to see her flight records. I am her primary emergency contact."

The official frowned, scrolling through the screen. "Sir, you are not listed as her emergency contact."

"Therefore, we cannot release any details to you without legal proof of relationship."

Charlie's pupils dilated. "What did you say?" He took a sudden step forward, his voice rising in anger.

"I have been her fianc for eight years! I have always been her emergency contact!"

Cynthia peeked out from behind him, timidly tugging at his sleeve.

"Charlie, Norah must have been truly furious this time."

She looked around, making sure her voice was just loud enough for the nearby families to hear.

"But even if she is mad at me, she should not play with her life like this. We do not even know if she was actually on that plane, and now she is causing all this unnecessary panic."

A mother nearby, who had just lost her daughter, whipped around with bloodshot eyes, glaring at Cynthia. "Are you trying to say she faked being on a crashed plane just to throw a tantrum?"

A wave of collective fury rippled through the grieving crowd. Several people closed in, casting accusing glares at Charlie and Cynthia.

Charlie instinctively stepped in front of Cynthia to shield her. "Everyone, please calm down. This is not Cynthia's fault."

He frowned, his voice growing cold and hard. "Norah made the decision to change her flight on her own. She has to take responsibility for her own choices."

Watching him, I found it almost tragic.

Before my death was even officially confirmed, he was desperate to absolve Cynthia of any guilt. He would not even offer a simple defense of my character, like mentioning how professional I had always been, or that I would never use my job to throw a tantrum.

Static crackled from the radio at the front of the hall. The live feed from the search and rescue team filled the main screen.

Out on the dark ocean, a massive spotlight cut through the mist. The official's expression changed instantly, and he rushed toward the screen.

He looked past the crowd, his eyes locking onto Charlie. "The maritime search team has just recovered the first batch of floating debris."

His voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly to every corner of the room. "Is this charred crew luggage tag belonging to Ms. Norah?"

Everyone froze. A metal tray, damp and salt-stained from the ocean, was brought into the hall. At the center lay a burnt leather luggage tag.

The name Norah was still faintly legible, resting beside a half-charred white rose brooch.

Charlie stared blankly at the brooch. It was the very ornament he had pinned onto my uniform during our engagement party eight years ago.

"Wait... that is impossible." He took a step back, his voice cracked. "It cannot be her. She was not wearing that when she left the house."

The gloved officer pulled items from a sealed waterproof bag. "Sir, we retrieved this from her flight bag found floating on the water."

A waterlogged planner was opened, and a stack of small slips of paper fell out onto the table.

Charlie bent down and picked one up. It was a receipt from the airport parking garage.

On the back, a neat hand had written: Charlie went to pick up Cynthia first again today. I waited at Terminal 2 for three hours.

The officer knelt, gathering the scattered slips of paper. There were exactly three hundred of them.

On the back of every single receipt, there was a similar note.

New Year's Eve. Flight delayed. Charlie said Cynthia was terrified of the fireworks, so he went to be with her instead.

My birthday. Just flew a long haul, landed with a high fever. Charlie was busy organizing a funeral for Cynthia's pet dog.

Promoted to Chief Flight Attendant. Charlie did not show. Cynthia said she cut her finger slicing fruit.

Charlie clutched the receipts, his eyes rimmed with red. He stared at the mountain of records scattered on the floor, unable to believe what he was seeing.

Three hundred times. Eight years of broken promises and cold abandonment, laid bare beneath his feet.

Floating above, I watched the painful, quiet realization cross his face. I had wept while writing the first few notes. By the end, I had felt absolutely nothing.

Cynthia's expression shifted. She stepped forward to wrap her arm around Charlie's, but he instinctively flinched away, completely unaware of his own movement.

"Why would Norah keep track of things like this?" A flicker of panic crossed Cynthia's eyes, quickly replaced by a pout.

"Charlie, has she been harboring a grudge against me all this time?" She lowered her voice, her tone fragile.

"She kept score of every single little thing just to force you to apologize later. I had no idea she was so calculating..."

Charlie's shoulders tensed. Looking at the sea of accusations at his feet, his irritation flared up again.

"Yeah, she never used to be this petty," he muttered, crumpling the receipt in his fist. "Maybe one of her colleagues picked up her flight bag by mistake. There is still no proof she was on that plane."

I watched him, a bitter smile gracing my lips. His prejudice against me was so deeply rooted that even evidence of my death could not shake it.

Ignoring their bickering, the officer unzipped the innermost compartment of the flight bag and pulled out a numbered brass key.

"Mr. Harrington, this is Ms. Norah's locker key for the airport crew lounge. According to standard procedure, her personal belongings must be inventoried in the presence of her family."

Half an hour later, the airport manager escorted Charlie to the Terminal 3 crew lounge. The locker door clicked open.

Charlie reached in and pulled out a small tin box. Inside was a stack of about a dozen letters. None of them had stamps, but they all bore the same title: Termination of Engagement.

Charlie's breath hitched. He slipped the top letter out of its envelope and unfolded it.

The paper had yellowed with age, but the handwriting was elegant and clear. Charlie, after I complete this flight, let us call off our engagement.

I am tired of waiting for a man who always puts someone else first. The date at the bottom was from eight years ago, the morning after our engagement party.

Charlie's fingers trembled, letting the letter slip to the floor. "She wanted to leave me eight years ago?" he whispered, his eyes vacant.

The airport manager pushed up his glasses. "Mr. Harrington, Norah was our most outstanding Purser."

"She had a flawless, complaint-free record for eight consecutive years. She was a professional. She would never compromise her work over a personal spat."

"She only changed her flight because another flight attendant fell suddenly ill, and she volunteered to cover the shift."

Charlie clenched his fists. "She just wrote these to scare me," he insisted, staring at the letters as if trying to force himself to believe it. "If she really wanted to leave, why did she keep these letters hidden for eight years? She would never actually leave me."

Standing by the door, Cynthia watched Charlie unravel, her fingernails digging deep into her palms.

The manager reached into the very back of the locker and pulled out a small piece of cardstock. It was a faded table card from our engagement party. There was a line of writing on the back.

The manager read it aloud in a quiet voice: If my eight-years-ago self can hear this, do not accept his proposal. Walk away from Charlie.

The room went dead silent. Charlie snatched the card from the manager's hand. The red ink burned his eyes.

If my eight-years-ago self can hear this... He repeated the words, a sudden memory flashing in his mind.

Two hours before the crash, he had indeed received a call from my number. But there had been no words, only the terrifying roar of rushing wind and distant weeping.

He had been in such a rush to take Cynthia to the hospital for her supposed panic attack that he had snapped, "Stop playing games," and hung up.

He sprinted out of the lounge and back to his car parked outside. Flinging the door open, he grabbed his phone from the passenger seat.

He unlocked the screen and opened his photo gallery, searching desperately for a photo of our engagement eight years ago to prove his reality.

The moment the photo loaded, Charlie's eyes widened in sheer terror.

The image of me wearing the diamond ring, leaning happily against his shoulder, began to blur at the edges.

The pixels were actively erasing themselves before his eyes. He rubbed them in disbelief.

A few seconds later, the image snapped back into focus. I was still wearing the engagement dress.

But there was no ring on my finger. I stood entirely alone at the entrance of the banquet hall, clutching a bouquet, my expression cold and distant.

And Charlie was nowhere to be seen.

The timestamp at the bottom of the screen flickered rapidly before locking onto the date: eight years ago, today.

"What is happening..." Charlie tapped the screen furiously. "Is this a software glitch? How can a photo change?"

Standing just outside the car window, I watched him with utter detachment. The rewrite of reality had finally begun.

Cynthia opened the passenger door and slid in, bringing a heavy cloud of perfume with her.

She glanced at his screen, her eyes flickering. "Charlie, stop doing this to yourself."

She reached over to cover the screen, her voice soft but venomous. "Norah never really loved you that much anyway."

"Did you forget? On the night of your engagement party eight years ago, the media photographed you helping me into your car."

Charlie whipped his head around to face her. "At the rescue center, you just said Norah changed her flight because she was angry at you!"

"I lived with her for eight years! Now you are telling me she stopped loving me eight years ago?"

Cynthia unlocked her own phone and held it in front of him. The headline screamed: Harrington Group Heir Abandons Bride at Engagement Party to Escort Childhood Friend to Hospital.

Cynthia sighed, but a smug satisfaction lingered in her eyes. "If I had not had that sudden breathing fit, maybe things would not have ended like that."

"Norah always held a grudge against you for choosing me first. How could you forget?"

Charlie stared at Cynthia's self-righteous expression, his breathing turning shallow and fast.

Eight years ago, he had left me standing alone in front of hundreds of guests. He had simply said, "Cynthia is having an attack. I will be right back."

I had waited for three hours, only to be greeted by that trending headline.

The space around my spectral form began to warp. The timeline was closing its loops.

I found myself back in the dressing room behind the banquet hall eight years ago. My younger self had just disconnected that impossible video call from the future.

The flush of excitement on her cheeks vanished, replaced by a devastating chill.

The heavy wooden door was pushed open. A twenty-two-year-old Charlie walked in, sweat glistening on his forehead. "Norah, I am so sorry. Cynthia is in bad shape."

He fished the velvet box from his pocket and went down on one knee. "Let us finish this. The guests are still waiting outside."

My younger self looked down at him. "If Cynthia calls right now saying she is in pain, would you leave again?"

Charlie froze. He parted his lips, trying to explain, "She has panic disorder, she cannot be left alone..." He could not even manage a lie to reassure me.

I stared at him for a few seconds and smiled. I unpinned the white rose corsage from my dress and tossed it into the trash can. "Then you do not need to kneel."

I turned around, pushed open the heavy double doors of the banquet hall, and walked out past the stunned stares of the guests.

Reality snapped back to the car. Charlie stared at his phone.

He realized that it was not just that one photo. Every single couple's photo from our eight years together was actively disappearing from his digital albums.

The tropical beach vacation photos transformed into images of him accompanying Cynthia to an aquarium.

The pictures of me celebrating his birthday with him dissolved into shots of him working late alone in his office.

"No... this is wrong!" Charlie roared. He shoved Cynthia aside and slammed his foot on the gas. "I am going to the hotel! I need to see the security footage from that night!"

Cynthia was thrown back against the passenger seat, her face pale with shock.

Half an hour later, Charlie burst into the hotel lobby. He grabbed the manager by his lapels, his eyes wild and bloodshot. "Show me the records from November twelfth, eight years ago! Find the security footage from Norah's engagement party!"

Terrified, the manager scrambled to pull up the files. A few minutes later, he handed a printed ledger to Charlie. "Mr. Harrington, are you sure you have the right date?" the manager whispered. "On that day, Ms. Norah did not accept your proposal. By the time you ran after her, she had already left alone. The engagement was never finalized."

A loud ringing filled Charlie's ears. He snatched the paper, crumpling it into a tight ball. "Impossible! She loved me, she agreed to marry me!"

He gritted his teeth. "We were engaged! We lived together for eight years! Have you all lost your minds?"

He bolted out of the hotel and drove straight to our downtown apartment. The moment he pushed the door open, he froze at the entryway.

The slippers that had always belonged to me were gone.

He strode into the living room. The dried flowers on the coffee table had been replaced by a glass ashtray. The flight plaques hanging on the wall had vanished without a trace.

He ran into the walk-in closet and flung open the left wardrobe door. It was completely empty. My uniforms, dresses, and coats had been entirely erased.

Charlie slumped against the closet door, staring down at his ring finger. "It is still here... the ring is still here." He clutched his fist so hard the metal bit into his skin. It was his last saving grace. "As long as the ring exists, I have not lost my mind."

Cynthia rushed through the front door, panting. Seeing him in such a state, a flash of possessiveness masked as worry appeared in her eyes.

She stepped forward, unwrapped her scarf, and hung it on the hook that used to hold my winter coat. "Charlie, stop searching."

She wrapped her arms around him from behind, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. "I am the one who has been by your side for the last eight years. Have you forgotten?"

"I took care of you when you were sick. I brought you meals when you worked late. Norah was never even here. Why are you tormenting yourself over a ghost?"

Charlie whipped around, violently shaking off her grip. "Enough! Shut up!"

He glared at Cynthia with bloodshot eyes. "Norah existed! She was my fiance!"

Just then, his phone vibrated. It was an urgent alert from the airline, requesting all immediate family members of Flight 79 passengers to gather at headquarters for a briefing.

Like a man waking from a nightmare, Charlie grabbed his car keys and bolted out.

The atmosphere inside the airline headquarters' assembly hall was suffocatingly tense. An official stood at the podium holding a printed list.

"After forty-eight hours of non-stop search and rescue operations, we regret to inform you that there are no survivors from Flight 79."

The room erupted into heart-wrenching screams and weeping. Charlie stood frozen, feeling the warmth completely drain from his body.

He pushed through the grieving crowd and stumbled toward the check-in desk. "I am Norah's fianc."

He slammed his palms onto the desk, his knuckles white. "Give me her belongings. I want to take her home for the burial."

The receptionist looked up, verifying the database. A strange expression crossed her face.

"I am sorry, Mr. Harrington," the receptionist said, her tone professional but devastatingly blunt. "You are not listed as an authorized contact for Ms. Norah."

"Under company and legal policies, we cannot release any of her personal items to you."

Charlie froze. "What are you talking about? That is not what you said earlier!"

He slammed his fist down. "I am her fianc! We got engaged eight years ago!"

A man wearing glasses sitting nearby turned around to inspect him. "Are you Charlie Harrington?"

The man knit his brows, looking thoroughly confused. "Did the grief scramble your memory? I was Norah's classmate in college."

"She turned you down flat at her engagement party eight years ago. She has lived alone ever since. She never dated you, let alone for eight years."

"Your name was never on her emergency contacts, not even once."

It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck him. He stood paralyzed, the wails and whispers of the hall fading into white noise.

He looked down at his right hand, panic seizing him. The heavy band that had sat on his ring finger just minutes ago was gone. His finger was completely bare.

"You are lying to me! She loved me! She couldn't just vanish!"