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The girl across the aisle from me in row two was reading love letters.
Love letters, are the sort of thing you can identify with ease if you've written enough of them.
The stack of them, at least two dozen were written on matching 'Naval Training Station' letterhead, the edges stained in the devotion of frequent hands. She was a waif of a thing, or gave off the feeling of being so, something in the fragility of the way she held them. She had that careless, flawless beautiful skin that only black girls ever seem to have. Her hair sprung out, a wonderful chaotic burst of tight curls. Her playful blue sperrys seemed a quirky contrast to the plain, but ever eye catching off the shoulder brown top that exposed lithe but perfect shoulders.
There was an anxiousness about her, something I attributed at first glance to the contents or the history of her collection of letters. We waited in taxi, seats belted for take off and the letters filed in hand and her head on a swivel, she was continuously trying to look for something.
'Scared of flying?' I asked.
'Not the flying, just the taking off.'  she admitted and then shared , 'looking out the window, it sort of soothes me.' A quick look around and I could see, every shade was pulled down.
'Want to hold and squeeze my hand?' I offered, extending it into the no-man'so land of the empty aisle.
She giggled and said that she might take me up on it but I was left with the impression she wouldn't. So we sat, waiting our turn, me watching the enticing flitting movements of her anxiety and her doing her best to maintain her control.
When we rolled round the turn, picked up the first bit of pace, the cabin rattled with it's tale tell horizontal shake.
She turned suddenly to look at me, her eyes brown with rims of green and I knew instantly what she wanted and she took my hand with an endearing ferocity.
And then she smiled at me, and I knew in that moment exactly why all those love letters had been written.