Sometimes love isn’t about where you land…but who catches you on the way down.

***

One clumsy fall in LAX and my life shifts midair.

He catches me—this gorgeous, maddeningly calm Australian with an accent that short-circuits my brain: "Whoa, we want you on the plane, not under it." He says with a smile that should be illegal.

I laugh it off...nervously.

Then I board my flight to Sydney… and realize that he’s flying the plane.

I’m traveling halfway across the world to adopt a little girl named Dorothy.

He’s raising his daughter alone after losing his wife, balancing bedtime stories with international long-haul trips.

We talk mid-flight, at the upstairs bar no one tells you exists.

And something starts to spark—quietly, impossibly—before we even touch the ground.

In Sydney, our paths keep crossing..

But I’m a nurse with a life in Connecticut.

He’s a pilot grounded in Australia.

And this time, love might not be enough to close the distance.