You Owe Me a Murder(4)



She shrugged. “Just find it interesting.”

I held out my hand. “I’m Kim.”

“Nicki.” She smiled as we shook. “How come you aren’t hanging with the rest of your group?” She motioned to a couple rows over. There were eight of us on the trip and we were all on this flight. A few had busted out cards to play a game on the blue carpeted floor, and the others were clustered around Jamal’s laptop checking out his music.

“How did you know—?” I got out before she flicked the blue and white STUDENT SCHOLARS FOR CHANGE tag attached to my carry-on. I’d forgotten I was branded. “Ah. I’m not really friends with any of them. There are just three of us from my high school. It’s complicated,” I said.

Nicki nodded. “Story of my life. I was here visiting my dad, and the reason he lives here, instead of in London with me and my mum, is all sorts of complicated too.”

Nicki tucked her hair behind her ears. Her bob wasn’t quite long enough, so as soon as she did, the hair fell free and swung forward again. “Sorry, that came out a bit pissy. I just find other people . . . ugh. I don’t know. Disappointing.” She shoved her hair back again.

“Story of my life,” I said, echoing her words. She laughed and it reminded me of scales on a piano.

Nicki tapped the robotics magazine on my lap. “You plan on going into robotics at uni?”

I shook my head. “Not sure. I’m leaning toward engineering, maybe computers.”

She waited until an announcement about a flight to Phoenix stopped blaring on the PA. “I’m thinking psychology. I’m interested in research. This is my gap year.” She watched the unsupervised toddler fish a booger out of his nose and rub it into his hair.

“What kind of research?”

“Human behavior. I don’t have any interest in being a counselor. People blathering about their problems all day would drive me barmy. But I’m intrigued with why people do what they do, why they don’t do some things, what they could accomplish, that kind of thing.”

I traced the pattern in the carpet with my shoe. Understanding other people was one of the great mysteries in my life. “If you ever figure people out, you’ll have to let me know what you discover. Math I can make sense of, but people are more confusing than quantum physics. Give me a robot any day.”

She laughed. “Don’t give up on humanity just yet. Maybe you haven’t met anyone worth figuring out.”

The overhead speaker chirped to life. “Attention: Passengers on Air Canada flight 854 to London. Due to aircraft maintenance issues, this flight will be further delayed. We apologize for the inconvenience.” The crowd groaned. The screen over our gate flickered and a new departure time, three hours from now, blinked on.

Connor stood and stretched. “Who wants to find a place to watch the Whitecaps game?”

Our group began to gather up their stuff. He was like the pied piper of nerdy people. Everyone was willing to follow him. Miriam walked over toward me.

“Do you want to come?” she offered. Her legs were so small that her size extra small leggings were baggy around her thighs. She must buy her clothing in a kids’ department.

“No thanks,” I managed to say, willing her to walk away. Or she could disappear completely—?I was open to that, too.

“You can’t want to hang around here for the next three hours.” Miriam nudged my tote with her foot. “C’mon, we’ll all get some fries or something. It’ll be fun.”

Fun wasn’t even in the top ten words that I would think of to describe the situation. “I’m fine,” I insisted. It was bad enough that Connor wanted nothing to do with me. It was worse that he started dating someone else right away. It was a nightmare that I was stuck on this trip with them. But her being nice to me was a layer of shit icing on this crap cupcake. I didn’t even know how much Connor had told her about what had happened between the two of us. I wasn’t sure what I preferred: that she knew and felt pity for me, or that he hadn’t told her anything because he didn’t think I was worth mentioning. I slouched lower in the seat.

“Leave it—?she doesn’t want to come. Trust me, no one will miss her with that attitude.” Connor strode over and took Miriam’s hand without even glancing at me.

I flushed. He was right. I was a walking black cloud of doom. I hadn’t bothered to get to know anyone else coming on the trip and now I was going to be miserable and alone.

“Gawd, he’s a tosser,” Nicki said, loud enough to carry.

I wasn’t entirely certain what it meant, but it sounded both hysterical and insulting. I burst out laughing.

Connor and Miriam walked off down the hall, the rest of the group following behind them. He glanced over his shoulder at us, and when he saw we were still staring, he whirled back around.

My chest filled with air. I felt like one of those large balloons at a parade—?ready to float away. “I don’t know what you said, but you’re my new favorite person on this planet,” I said. I meant it, too. My BFF couldn’t be reached except by letter. Emily might as well have been in space for all the help she could give me.

“That guy is a loser.” Nicki pulled me from my seat. “I can tell, because as we’ve already established, I study people. You can pay me back for correctly identifying him as a wanker by keeping me entertained for the next few hours.”

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