"Therman… Therman Blake," Talik responded.
Hanita couldn't hear anything again once she heard those names come out of Talik's mouth. It felt like her world had stopped. It felt like her head was swelling and it was enlarging as she could hear some ringing in her ears that seemed to have blocked out every to hear sound coming from her surrounding. Her eyes were fixated on Talik and she could see that his mouth was moving like he was saying something, even attempting to reach out to her but Hanita couldn't hear a word. She couldn't move. She was shocked to her bones – and didn't even know why.
Talik unstrapped himself and got to where she was sitting. He squatted in front of Hanita looking directly into her eyes and her face. He searched with worry plastered all over his face for what was wrong with her. But her gaze was still on the chair where he had stood up from. He touched her and jerked at the way she flinched.
Hanita looked at Talik with a little fear in her eyes as they widened to the size of little saucers.
"D-Don't touch me!" Hanita yelled.
Talik's brows creased with a quizzical look on his face. The atmosphere in the plane had suddenly changed and had become so tense that it confused Talik to his marrow.
He didn't say anything and withdrew his hands as his fingers curled until he stood up from the position that he had been in.
Talik walked back to his chair but didn't take a seat. He kept staring at Hanita whose gaze was now on the floor of the plane, obviously thinking about something.
Her eyeballs danced from one end of her eye sockets to the other.
'No…no it can't be!' she thought. She looked around the plane and where she was seated and felt trapped. If she were in another place, Hanita would have walked out a long time ago but she was on a plane! Where would she go? She had to get out of here as she felt like she couldn't think. Her brain felt clogged with thoughts and regrets – with plans and all the things that her mother had narrated to her.
"Don't…" Hanita said as she trailed off. She had not been referring to anyone in particular and that word came out as if it was a continuation of whatever she was saying in her mind.
"Don't what?" Talik asked. "What is the matter, Hanita? Are you okay?" Talik asked. His voice sounds really worried right now. He had seen how she had gotten pale and the beads of perspiration that appeared on her forehead now even though the plane was heavily air-conditioned. Something was definitely wrong and Talik could tell – heck, a blind man could tell.
"I don't- I don't want to hear your voice, Talik," Hanita said as she raised her hand motioning for him to stop speaking.
"Why? What happened?" Talik asked again. He slid his hands into his pocket and waited for her to clear the confusion that was thick between them.
"Your fa-father is," Hanita drew a long breath in. Her mind played a scene of what could have happened to her mother all those years ago. She saw her mother being slapped, being punched, and pushed to the ground with a protruding stomach. Hanita squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head as if that would dispel the images that her mind was wickedly forming with her. It was a painful thing to see but Hanita could not seem to be able to put those images at bay. Her eyes began to tear up as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She got so uncomfortable that she pulled at the seat belt securing her in place and couldn't seem to reach the place where they unhooked it.
Talik watched the confusion and the disarray but didn't reach out to help her, knowing that she was going to lash out at him again. He watched her with pain on his face and in his heart. The pain within stemmed from the fact that he didn't know what he had done or said wrong but something he had done had rubbed off on Hanita wrongly – and he wished that she could just tell him what it was and they could get over it once and for all.
Finally, she got to the moth of the seat belt and pressed a button which made the belt snap and unhook. Immediately, Hanita stood up and rushed to the back of the plane. She stood there looking around as if the whole place was swarming with things that could hurt her. She began to hyperventilate but at the same time, she knew that she could not go anywhere or out of this plane – at least not until the thing landed. Hanita burst into a sob.
Talik walked over to where she is and with hesitation, he stretched out his arms and encompassed her with them.
'Leave me!" Hanita yelled.
"Why?!" Talik returned with his voice going up a notch as well. The perplexity of what was going on getting to him in the worst way possible.
"Your father is a monster!" Hanita yelled as she faced Talik squarely with her face full of tears.
"What sort of wicked twist of fate is this?" Hankita asked no one in particular as she raked her hair with both hands and turned around, backing Talik.
Talik was lost.
"I'm stuck here! I need to get out of this goddamn plane!" Hankita yelled. She was not one to act in this manner or even act near hysterical but Hanita could not control herself – she could not control the feelings that were swirling within her. She just couldn't.
"When are we landing?!" she asked still backing Talik. "I need to be off this plane! I shouldn't have come!" she said, stretching the last part of her sentence a little bit longer as a sob accompanied it.