The flight attendant waited for the man to explain himself.
He looked at her, then at me, then down again.
His face was still red.
"I want to know what she did."
The attendant kept her voice calm.
"Sir, I need you to tell me what the problem is."
He pointed toward my seat.
"She did something while I was asleep."
I looked at him.
"You were asleep?"
He stared at me as if I had insulted him.
"Don't play innocent."
I almost laughed at that.
Not because the situation was funny anymore, but because of the way he had suddenly decided that I was the one who needed to explain my behavior.
For the past hour, I had been the person asking for something simple.
He had refused.
Now he wanted answers.
The woman beside me lowered her book onto her lap.
"I think you should explain why your foot was on her armrest first," she said.
He turned toward her.
"Stay out of this."
She blinked.
Then she looked at me.
I could see that she was making an effort not to respond.
The flight attendant noticed the exchange.
"Sir, please lower your voice."
He drew a breath through his nose.
For a moment, I thought he might listen.
Instead, he looked at me again.
"You think this is funny?"
"No," I said. "I think you should have moved your foot when I asked."
He shook his head.
"That has nothing to do with what you did."
I couldn't help noticing how quickly he separated the two things.
His behavior was one matter, apparently.
Whatever had embarrassed him was another.
He wanted the second matter investigated without discussing the first.
I understood why.
It was easier to be angry about something that had happened to him than to admit that he had spent the flight making someone else uncomfortable.
The attendant glanced toward the seats around us.
"Was there an issue before this?"
The woman beside me answered before I could.
"He kept putting his bare foot on her armrest."
The man's mouth fell open.
"I did not keep putting it there."
She looked at him.
"It was there for ages."
He turned to the attendant.
"I took my shoes off because my feet were uncomfortable."
The attendant nodded slightly.
"Taking your shoes off isn't the issue. Where your foot was resting is the issue."
For the first time, he seemed to realize that the attendant wasn't automatically going to agree with him.
He glanced toward the passengers who had been watching.
Several were now looking away, trying to return to their own activities.
The passenger across the aisle still had a faint smile on his face.
The man noticed.
His cheeks darkened again.
"Everyone's acting like I've committed a crime."
"No one said that," I replied.
He looked at me sharply.
"Then why are you doing this?"
I held his gaze.
"Because I asked you to move your foot, and you wouldn't."
The words sounded almost too simple after everything that had happened.
But they were the truth.
I hadn't started the argument.
I hadn't asked him to give up his seat or stop listening to his music.
I had asked him to keep his foot out of my space.
He had decided that request didn't matter.
The attendant shifted her attention back to him.
"Sir, I'd like you to return to your seat for now."
He didn't move.
"You're not going to make her explain what she did?"
The attendant's expression remained professional.
"If you have a concern, I'll listen. But I need you to lower your voice and return to your seat."
He looked as though he wanted to argue with that too.
Then he glanced around the cabin.
There were too many people watching.
He finally stepped back.
I heard the soft scrape of his shoes against the floor as he moved toward his row.
The woman beside me leaned closer.
"Are you all right?"
I nodded.
I wasn't entirely sure I was.
My hands felt strangely cold, even though my face was warm.
The confrontation had taken only a few minutes, but my body seemed to be catching up with it slowly.
The man stopped beside his seat.
He looked down again, then toward me.
I couldn't tell whether he was angrier about what had happened or about the fact that other people had witnessed his reaction.
Perhaps both.
The attendant waited until he was back in his row before turning to me.
"Are you comfortable here, ma'am?"
I hesitated.
The honest answer was complicated.
I didn't want to move seats because I had done nothing wrong.
I also didn't want another argument.
"I'm fine," I said. "I just want to finish the flight without his foot on my armrest."
The attendant nodded.
"I understand."
She looked toward the man.
"Please keep your feet within your own seating area."
He muttered something I couldn't hear.
The attendant didn't argue.
She moved on down the aisle.
I watched her go, then turned back toward the window.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The cabin noise gradually swallowed the awkward silence.
A movie resumed somewhere behind us.
A passenger opened a packet of crackers.
Someone pressed the call button a few rows away.
Ordinary life returned, almost embarrassingly quickly.
The woman beside me finally released the breath she'd been holding.
"I thought he was going to start shouting."
"So did I."
"He's unbelievable."
I looked down at my hands.
"I probably shouldn't have let it go on so long."
She considered that.
"You asked him nicely. More than once."
I nodded.
That was true.
Still, I wished I had called the attendant earlier.
I could have avoided some of the tension.
I could have saved myself the trouble of spending half the flight watching a foot that shouldn't have been there.
Instead, I had allowed my reluctance to make a scene to keep me in a situation I didn't like.
Then I had come up with a way to turn the embarrassment around.
I wasn't sure what that said about me.
The woman beside me touched the edge of her book.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"What exactly did you do?"
I looked at her.
She had helped me with the plan, but she still hadn't seen every detail.
For a moment, I considered telling her everything.
Then I glanced toward the man's row.
He was sitting stiffly, his headphones hanging around his neck.
His expensive watch rested against the armrest.
He was staring straight ahead.
I lowered my voice.
"I'll tell you in a minute."
She smiled.
"Fair enough."
I turned back to the window.
The clouds had thinned, revealing a patchwork of land far below.
I tried to concentrate on it.
The man behind me remained quiet.
For the first time in hours, I could rest my elbow on the armrest without worrying about what might touch it.
It should have felt like a small victory.
Instead, I mostly felt tired.
The whole incident had reminded me how quickly a minor act of selfishness could take over a space that belonged to everyone.
It had also reminded me that I wasn't obligated to keep making myself smaller simply because another person refused to behave reasonably.
I leaned back.
The armrest was mine to use.
Nothing more complicated than that.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Woman Beside Me Finally Asked About My Plan, and I Had to Admit That Revenge Had Felt Easier Than Speaking Up
Four Hours Into a Crowded Flight, I Discovered That the Man Behind Me Had Decided My Armrest Belonged to Him
Part 5 of 8
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