Twenty Years Later

Twenty Years Later I, Beth Thomas, a 37-year-old married woman, have always been afraid to ride an airplane. People always say the only way to get over your fears is to face them, so today will be the day I will face my greatest fear. Why today you ask? Because today is the day of my twenty year High School Reunion. Today will be the day I will see my fellow classmates of the class of Dorman High 2009. Yikes! I Cant believe it! Twenty years have passed since I’ve graduated from high school. Time has flown by so fast! Where did it go? What happened to all the drama, the heartaches, the tears, the laughter, the trends, the parties, and all of the fun times that came along with being in high school? I had the time of my life back then. People are right when they say the best years of your life are when you are young. Man, how I wish life was that simple today! Where I wouldn’t have to worry about a stressful job, or a discontented husband, or spoiled impertinent teenage kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love working as an interior designer and I certainly love my husband and children, but sometimes I wish I could just escape from my life. I want to take a break from life, and experience the same fun and excitement I did when I was in high school, so I plan to attend my 20-year high school reunion and with any luck this experience will bring back the found old memories of high school. I rolled over in bed to look at my clock. It was 9:57 am. My plane leaves in two hours! I quickly jumped out of bed and threw on the clothes I had laid out the night before. Then I went downstairs to fix myself a bagel. My husband Joe had already gone to work and taken our two daughters, Kim and Julie to school. He had left me a note on the fridge saying, “Good luck on the plane ride. I will be praying for you. I love you.” I had almost forgotten about my fear of riding planes! Ever since the 9/11 terrorists attacks when I was in the fifth grade, I have been terrified of riding a plane. I trembled in fear, but I told myself that everything was going to be fine and security is much more advanced than it was back then. I took a deep breath, grabbed my bags, set the alarm, and walked out the door. As I started the car, I put in a Nora Jones c.d. to relax me. After about thirty minutes of driving, I finally made it to the airport. I checked in with my bags, and took a seat waiting to be boarded. I pulled out one of my favorite books, Message in a Bottle, and started reading. After reading the book for a while, I felt as if I was being watched, so I looked up and there was a man sitting right across from me that was completely staring me down. It was rather disturbing, and almost immediately I looked away. When I looked back up, he was gone. The strange thing was that he looked so familiar, yet I couldn’t think of where or how I might’ve known him. He was about 6’1” with very dark features and a stern look. He looked roughly my age and there was something about him that was extremely unpleasant.
After thinking of where I might have seen him before, and not coming up with a response, I went back to my reading until they called my row to aboard the plane. When I was in line to be boarded I felt someone close behind me breathing heavily down my neck. It made me immensely uncomfortable and when I turned around, there the man was again. Once again he stared at me in the face, but this time I stared back at him, trying to cover my fear. He opened his mouth and with a deep intimidating voice he said, “Go.” Startled, I rushed back up to where the line had moved. He followed me, and continued to stay close behind me, which made my heart beat faster and faster with horror.
After what seemed like an hour, I was finally able to sit down in my seat. Unfortunately, the man had gotten the seat next to mine. I didn’t know why I was so afraid of him. There was just something about him that seemed dreadful.
We sat there in silence as the plane took flight. I pulled my book out to avoid the discomfort between us, but I couldn’t focus on what I was reading. I put the book back down and decided to try to take a nap. Even though I was perturbed sitting next to this man, I was exhausted and was able to fall into a peaceful rest. I daydreamed about making it off the plane and seeing all of my high school friends and classmates that I had neglected all of these years.
Suddenly, I was woken up by terrifying screams from the people on the plane. As I opened my eyes, I could see that the man no longer was sitting beside me, but was at the front of the plane pointing a gun to the pilot’s head and claiming he’ll have his revenge on the world. I panicked and screamed and cried with everything in me. As he yelled for everyone to shut up, I prayed for God not to let him do this. As I looked down I could see his wallet that he left on the seat beside mine. His license was on the front cover, and his name read Victor Augusts.
“I know you!” I screamed as everyone, including Victor turned their heads to face me. “We went to school together. It’s me, Beth Thomas. What’s happened to you?” I cried. He walked towards me pointing the gun towards my head. “Please don’t do this.” I begged. “Do you not remember?” he said aggressively, “I told you I would have my revenge.” “Revenge for what?” I asked in fright. “For everything! For every time someone would make fun of me and taunt me. For every time people would call me a low-life. For every time someone would say I wouldn’t make it in this world. I didn’t even get invited to that high school reunion. Sure, no one wants to remember the high school drop out. No one cares about the troublemaker whose father went to jail for killing a man. None of you people deserve to live, including you Beth.” “Your wrong,” I argued, “You’re better than this and you can prove everyone wrong. You can go to that reunion and show everyone that you’ve made it in life. You can overcome this and be an inspiration to everyone else who has had a criminal in their family. You don’t want to be like your father. You know that.” “You’re right,” he realized, “I don’t want to be like my father but he’s who I turned into and I can’t ever changed that,” he whispered as he pulled the trigger to his head.