How It All Goes Down
- Irene, the security guard! We missed her. Wait...what? Didn't she commit suicide?
- As it turns out, she didn't.
- When Lester Barnes passed along Natasha's thanks, it was enough to make her feel like somebody cared.
- It didn't heal her, but it gave her the motivation to call a hotline, go to therapy, and start taking life-saving medication.
- Two years later, she quits her job as a security guard and becomes a flight attendant. She remembers how lonely people can be on airplanes and thinks of herself as a "guardian angel with metallic wings" (342) for anyone who's having a hard time on a flight.
- One day, she's making her final checks on a flight. There's a young Asian man writing in a little black book in seat 7A. Sounds familiar…
- One row behind him, there's a young black woman in 8C. She's wearing earbuds and has a big Afro with pink tips.
- Irene watches her until she's absolutely certain she's the girl from New York. She crouches down in the aisle next to the young woman and tells her about the phone call that saved her life. She asks if the young woman remembers her.
- Irene imagines time stopping and all the passengers fading away until it's just her and this young woman. She really hopes she remembers.
- She does! Her name is Natasha.
The young man in 7A peers over the top of the seat. "Natasha," he says. His face is wide open and the world is full of love.
Natasha looks up.
Time stumbles back into place. The plane and the seats re-form. The passengers solidify into flesh. And blood. And bone. And heart.
"Daniel," she says. And again, "Daniel." (344)- And that's all she wrote—she being Nicola Yoon, of course. What happens next is up to you.