The entire apparatus of my family existed to make sure it never would; the merger, the wedding, the honeymoon to a country far from Brooklyn — all of it was machinery designed to keep me safely on my side of that lounge.

And here I was, crossing it anyway, drawn by a pair of storm-gray eyes in a face two feet off the ground.

I think some part of me knew, before I ever reached them, that there would be no walking back.

That whatever waited at the window would be true in a way nothing in my arranged life had ever been, and that once I had seen it up close I would not be able to un-see it and return to my seat and fly to Cabo and live the life on the itinerary.

I crossed the lounge anyway.

For once in my life, I did not let the machinery decide.