Seatmates and Small Talk

“Oh no,” I repeated quietly to myself, because if there was one thing experience had taught me, it was that those two words were never wrong.

They were never casual words. They were not words you said when things were fine. They were words reserved for moments when your carefully constructed emotional neutrality cracked just enough to let something inconvenient slip through. Like interest. Or curiosity. Or, worst of all, hope.

Hope, after all, was a dangerous thing.

It crept in quietly, as though it belonged there. It made itself comfortable, kicked its shoes off, and then ruined your life by demanding things. Like vulnerability. Or emotional availability. Or, God forbid, expectations. Hope never knocked. It just showed up and started rearranging your furniture.

I shifted in my seat and pretended to be deeply invested in the in-flight safety card, which I had seen approximately a thousand times and still could not remember. Something about oxygen masks, put yours on first, even though instinct would absolutely tell you not to, and exits that were probably not where you needed them to be when panic set in.

I traced the cartoon figures with my eyes like I was studying for an exam. Focus, I told myself. This is just a stranger. A mildly attractive stranger. With a child. On a plane. Entirely temporary.

Across the aisle, Lucas had already abandoned his seat again.

Of course, he had.

He stood halfway between rows, a toy aeroplane held aloft like he was reenacting a dramatic takeoff sequence from an action movie. His arms stretched wide, face scrunched in intense concentration, complete with sound effects that were far louder than anything permitted at cruising altitude.

A flight attendant paused mid-aisle and gave him a look that said I am trying very hard to be patient, but this is testing me. Lucas, blissfully unaware of both social cues and authority figures, zoomed past her with a triumphant whoooooosh, narrowly missing someone’s elbow.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

I failed.

Well, partially. A small, undignified snort escaped, and I immediately pretended to cough, because dignity, once lost, must at least be mourned.

Julien stood up again, movements calm and practised, clearly resigned to his fate. This was not the reaction of a man surprised by chaos. This was a man who lived with it daily and had accepted it as part of his existence.

“Lucas,” he said gently, the way only parents who had already said a name forty-seven times in the last hour could. There was no anger in his voice. Just tired affection. “Remember what we talked about?”

Lucas skidded to a stop, trainers squeaking faintly against the floor. He looked up at Julien with wide, innocent eyes, as if this were a completely reasonable place to pause mid-flight reenactment.

“Inside voices?” he offered.

Julien nodded. “Yes.”

“And inside running,” Julien added, because experience had clearly taught him that rules needed layers.

Lucas frowned, tiny brows knitting together as he considered this new information. He glanced around the cabin, then back at Julien.

“But planes are inside.”

There was a beat.

Just one.

And then I lost it.

The laugh escaped before I could stop it, short, sharp, unguarded. The kind that came from somewhere deep and unpoliced. I clapped a hand over my mouth too late, shoulders shaking as I tried and failed to regain composure.

Julien glanced at me, caught mid-kneel, and smiled.

Not a polite smile. Not a strained one. Just a small, genuine curve of his lips, like he was amused despite himself. Like he’d forgotten, for half a second, that parenting was exhausting, and life was complicated, and grief lingered.

And something about that smile, quick and unguarded, settled unexpectedly in my chest.

Oh, I thought.

This is trouble.

 “Sorry,” I said quickly. “He’s… very logical.”

“That’s one word for it,” Julien replied.

Lucas grinned at me like we were now officially on the same team. “Do you live on the plane?”

“I don’t,” I said. “But honestly? That would explain a lot.”

Julien chuckled, shaking his head. “Lucas, why don’t you sit for a bit?”

Lucas sighed dramatically, the weight of responsibility clearly heavy for someone his age. “Okay,” he said. “But I’ll come back.”

“I know,” Julien said, like a man who absolutely knew.

Lucas trotted back to his seat.

Julien remained standing for a moment, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Thank you for being… patient.”

“I like him,” I said. “He’s entertaining.”

“That makes one of us,” Julien replied dryly, then smiled to soften it.

He hesitated, then gestured toward the empty seat beside me. “Do you mind if I sit here for a bit? He behaves better when he thinks I’m nearby.”

Oh.

So this was happening.

“Sure,” I said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near slightly too eager.

Julien settled into the seat beside me, careful, considerate, like he was always aware of the space he took up. Which was unfortunate, because he took up a very pleasant amount of space.

The plane hummed around us, steady and low.

“I’m Ellie,” I said, because we had technically already exchanged names, but repeating it felt polite. Normal. Definitely not a sign that I wanted to prolong the interaction.

“I remember,” Julien said. “Julien.”

“I remember,” I echoed.

We shared a brief smile, the kind that lingered just long enough to feel like something.

“So,” he said, clearing his throat. “France for the holidays?”

“Yes,” I said. “France for the holidays.”

“Alone?”

I nodded. “By choice. Mostly.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Mostly?”

I shrugged. “Let’s call it… strategic avoidance.”

That earned me a laugh. A proper one this time. Warm. Easy.

“I understand that,” he said. “I’m taking Lucas home. He’s been very excited.”

“Are you visiting family?” I asked.

“My parents live nearby,” he said. “And home is… well. Home.”

Something in his tone shifted, not sad, exactly, but careful. Like he was choosing each word deliberately.

“And you?” he asked. “Any big holiday plans?”

“No,” I said quickly. Too quickly. I softened it. “Just me. Walking. Eating. Existing without answering questions.”

He smiled knowingly. “That sounds like a dream.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

Lucas popped up again, leaning between our seats. “Are you friends now?”

Julien closed his eyes. “Lucas, ”

“Yes,” I said. “We’re friends.”

Lucas nodded, satisfied. “Good.”

And just like that, it was decided.

The rest of the flight unfolded in a series of small moments, the kind that didn’t announce themselves as important, but quietly stacked together until they became something else entirely.

Shared snacks, for one. Lucas insisted on offering me half of everything he had, regardless of whether I wanted it or whether it made sense. Crackers, fruit snacks, something vaguely chocolate-flavoured that I suspected had been melted and reformed at least once. Declining was not an option. Apparently, once you’d been selected as a captive audience, you were also family.

He made me judge his aeroplane tricks with all the seriousness of an Olympic panel. Takeoffs. Landings. Midair spins were performed with intense concentration and sound effects that fluctuated wildly in volume. I awarded scores generously, because I had learned very quickly that anything below a nine resulted in dramatic sighs and theatrical disappointment.

Julien apologised approximately once every ten minutes.

“Sorry,” he said when Lucas leaned across me to retrieve a fallen toy.

“It’s fine,” I said, because it was.

“Sorry,” he said when Lucas kicked my bag by accident.

“It’s fine,” I repeated, because it really was.

“Sorry,” he said again when Lucas asked me, loudly, whether I liked dinosaurs more than sharks.

“I’m pro-both,” I said, and Julien laughed.

And somehow, somewhere between apology number seven and snack number three, I realised something alarming.

I didn’t mind any of it.

Not the interruptions. Not the noise. Not the way my personal space had been casually invaded and repurposed as a play area. I wasn’t counting the minutes until landing. I wasn’t mentally rehearsing my escape.

I was… enjoying myself.

Conversation flowed easily, the way it did when no one was trying too hard. We talked about travel, where we’d been, where we wanted to go, places that disappointed us and places that surprised us. We talked about food, because food was safe and universal and revealing in small ways. Julien had strong opinions about bread. I respected that.

We talked about nothing. About everything.

Julien had a dry sense of humour, the kind that slipped in sideways and caught you off guard. He didn’t dominate the conversation or steer it toward himself. He listened when I spoke, really listened. Not the polite nodding kind, but the kind where he remembered things. The kind that made me feel like what I was saying mattered, even when it probably didn’t.

And when he talked, it wasn’t to impress. There was no performance. No résumé disguised as conversation. Just sharing.

At some point, quietly, without fanfare, I realised I was relaxed.

My shoulders had dropped. My jaw didn’t feel clenched. I wasn’t monitoring myself, wasn’t overthinking every word.

That should have worried me.

When the plane began its descent, the cabin lights dimmed, casting everything in a soft, artificial dusk. Outside, the darkness gave way to scattered lights below, France, unfolding beneath us like a promise I hadn’t fully thought through.

My temporary escape.

My carefully planned solitude.

Lucas pressed his face to the window, nose smudging the glass. “We’re home,” he announced proudly, as if he personally had something to do with it.

Julien smiled at him, then turned to me. “Welcome,” he said.

Something about the way he said it, simple, genuine, made my chest tighten.

As we disembarked, the spell broke just enough for reality to reassert itself. We exchanged polite goodbyes. Normal. Reasonable. The kind people had every day without consequence.

“It was nice meeting you,” Julien said.

“You too,” I replied, meaning it more than I should have.

This was where it ended.

Except it didn’t.

Because as we stepped outside and joined the crowd at the taxi stand, snow began to fall, soft at first, hesitant, then steadily, like the universe had decided to escalate things.

I watched the flakes gather in the air, felt the cold creep in, and heard myself sigh.

Julien turned toward me. “Are you heading into the city?”

I nodded, bracing myself for nothing more than polite acknowledgement.

“So are we,” he said.

Of course you are, I thought.

Of course you are.