She booked the aisle seat three times before she actually paid for it.
The airline website kept refreshing, as if it were also unsure she belonged there. Seat map. Exit row (too much pressure). Middle seat (absolutely not). Window (trapped). Back to aisle. Back to aisle again. She hovered over the purchase button long enough for the price to change, as if the universe itself was charging her extra for indecision.
[[Or for her body.]]
She had not been on a plane in seven years.
Not because she couldn’t afford it. Not because she didn’t want to travel. But because the last time she flew, a man had sighed loudly when he saw her ticket *seat 14B* then looked at her, then at the armrest, like he was doing math he didn’t like the answer to. He had said nothing directly, which somehow made it worse. The flight attendant had offered a seatbelt extender in a voice just loud enough for the surrounding rows to hear.
She remembered shrinking. Not physically (that would have been easier), but socially. Pulling her elbows in, apologizing with her posture, folding herself into the smallest version of herself she could manage. She spent three hours pretending she did not have a body at all. And it hurt. Emotionally and physically.
Now, years later, she stared at her confirmation email.
[[Seat 22C.]]Aisle.
She exhaled, but it didn’t feel like relief. It felt like rehearsal.
[[At the airport, everything felt like it had been designed for someone else.]]
When they called her boarding group, her legs felt heavier than usual, like gravity had opinions.
She walked down the jet bridge, the air getting thinner, warmer, more pressurized with anticipation. Every step forward felt like stepping into a spotlight she didn’t ask for.
The plane door loomed.
“Welcome aboard,” the flight attendant said, smiling.
She smiled back automatically, already bracing.
[[Row 22]]The security line curved like a question she didn’t want to answer. The bins were too small, the space between strangers too tight, the glances too quick and too practiced. She told herself what she always told herself:
//"No one is looking at you. Everyone is focused on themselves."//
And then someone bumped into her, “Oh! Sorry, didn’t see you,” in a way that felt less like apology and more like accusation.
At the gate, she chose a seat at the edge of the waiting area, back against the wall. She watched people board in her mind before it even happened. The shuffle. The scanning. The moment of eye contact with the person in front of her, the quick flicker of calculation.
[[Will she fit?]]
[[Will this be uncomfortable? ]]
[[Will this ruin my flight?]]
"I cannot take up space," she thought to herself.
[[She hated that she knew the script so well.]] The words of her seatmates, cramming all of herself into a small package, the public announcement of accommodations. She had to catapult herself out of anonymity.
[[She hated that she knew the script so well.]]The anticipation of shame and embarassment washed over her.
[[She hated that she knew the script so well.]]
A man in the window seat. A woman in the middle.
They both looked up.
There it was, that flicker. Not cruelty. Not even fully conscious. Just… awareness. Assessment.
She felt it land on her like a weight she was already carrying.
“Hi,” she said softly, lifting her bag into the overhead compartment. She took her time, not because it was heavy, but because she needed the extra seconds to prepare herself.
[[She sat down.]]The armrest between her and the middle seat felt like a boundary line drawn by someone who had never met her.
She adjusted her body, angled slightly toward the aisle, minimizing. Always minimizing.
“Excuse me,” she said, reaching for the seatbelt.
[[She already knew.]][[It wouldn’t click.]][[It never did.]]Her hands paused for half a second. Just long enough for the anxiety to spike.
Don’t make a scene. Don’t make it obvious. Don’t make them uncomfortable.
As if her existence wasn’t already doing that.
She raised her hand slightly to signal the flight attendant.
[[The smallest gesture she could manage.]]“Could I get a—” she started, voice low.
“Of course,” the flight attendant said gently, already holding the extender.
Not loud. Not performative. Just… normal.
[[She blinked.]] “Thank you,” she said, and this time it didn’t feel like an [[apology.]]As the plane filled, the usual choreography unfolded. Bags crammed. People negotiating space with polite tension. Someone laughing too loudly. Someone sighing.
Marisol kept her gaze forward.
But something felt… different.
The woman next to her shifted slightly. Not away, not rigid, just adjusting like people do. She offered a small smile.
“First flight in a while?” the woman asked.
She hesitated. “That obvious?”
The woman shrugged. “You have that… hyper-aware look. I get it.”
She let out a small laugh, surprised by it.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “It’s been a minute.”
They didn’t talk much after that. They didn’t need to.
But the silence wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t filled with judgment or tension or unspoken resentment.
[[It was just… quiet.]]
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As the plane took off, she felt her body press back into the seat.
For a moment, she forgot to be self-conscious.
For a moment, she was just a person on a plane, leaving one place, heading to another.
No shrinking. No disappearing. No rehearsing.
[[Just existing.]]
Halfway through the flight, she caught her reflection faintly in the window across the aisle.
Not distorted. Not minimized.
Just there.
She didn’t look away.
For once, she didn’t try to make herself smaller.
For once, she let herself take up exactly the space she already occupied.
And the plane kept flying.