Fate Interrupted

2. Back in California

"You don't want to?" 

"I guess. I mean, yes. Yes, I do. He's a selfish prick." Again, I sigh. "I just don't know how something can go from seemingly so good to so bad so fast. I thought he loved me for me, forever, you know? I mean, I wanted it too. I was practically obsessed!"

"Yeah, you called me about it every month. But then you, like, just dropped off the map. I feel like I've nearly never talked to you for the last year."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I feel like I became a different person under the stress, and he did too. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it anymore. It was hard even to process it by myself. But..."

"But..." Sydney encourages.

"But he just fucking gave up. On everything! I was willing to accept it and work past it. He, he, said it was just a deal-breaker for him."

"Ren, he's an asshole. He thinks he can just ditch you and pick up with someone else and have his happily ever after."

"Right? I don't have that luxury. I'm the one who's broken." My stormy grey eyes well up a bit at that. I hadn't meant to admit it just then. Though I bash myself up about it all the time, I have yet to say it out loud to anyone else.

"I'm kidding." I try to make it sound like it was a joke with a smile. But my half laugh comes out off-key. Sydney immediately comes round beside me and pulls me into a big hug. My best friend is finally here with me. It breaks the dam on my tears, and two big ones roll silently down my cheeks.

"Oh, Rennie! You're not broken. You are perfect just the way you are. Fate just has other plans for you."

After I sit there for a moment, letting her hold me, I collect myself and fish a tissue out of my bag, wiping my eyes and any stray mascara that might have smudged.

"You actually believe in fate?" I ask her. Giovanni had been the only other person in my life to talk about fate. He seemed so sure of it back then. That seems like a lifetime ago.

"Yeah, something like that, I guess," she says slowly. "God's plan, fate, destiny. I felt it just before I met Everett. Now we're married! You'll see, Rennie, this is still only the beginning."

Sydney leans into her dramatic side now, fixing me with these intense entrancing eyes—ones that convey she is indeed in touch with the forces of the beyond and takes my hands.

"When one door closes, the next one opens up, as they say... your next chapter is just about to start, and it's going to be great! I can feel it!!!"

It is just too over the top, and we both burst into a fit of laughter till both our eyes are sparkly with tears.

"So... did you read the book I sent you?" she asks sheepishly, changing the subject and stirring her drink.

"Yeah, well, half of it—and that reminds me... what the HELL, Syd! You sent me a book where the first chapter starts with a newly divorced woman and an Italian boy named Giovanni! My ex-boyfriend's name! I don't know if you thought that was cute, but I didn't find it funny at all."

"No? I thought it was tailor-made for you!" she smiles impishly, like the devious little Irish leprechaun she is sometimes. "Do you know what he's up to these days? Have you cyber-stalked him yet? You want me to?"

"No, Sydney, I don't."

"I'm great at it..."

"I am well aware of your aptitude in that realm, but no, thank you. I already have, actually, and there is nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. No Facebook account, no social media. Just a people search website pointing to his mom's old address in Bayfield from ten years ago."