Are you okay?

02:09AM

"Yeah, that wouldn't have been the wisest approach to take," I agreed, my smile faltering as I realised a discrepancy in his story. "But then how come you were able to stop me?"

"This is going to sound absolutely crazy but..." he trailed off, exhaling heavily before his onyx orbs returned to mine. "Something- something told me to turn back. I don't know what it was, whether it was intuition or some kind of sixth sense, but as insane as it sounds, I just... felt a sort of pull back to you."

The intensity of his gaze was almost too much for me to handle while he scanned my face, gauging my reaction to his words. I knew I should say something, and let him know he hadn't scared me off with his words or been too open, but the bizarreness of the situation was so unfathomable I had trouble letting it sink in.

"That's..."

"Weird?" he suggested, filling in my silence, "Creepy? Strange? Surreal? Or simply just crazy?"

"Fate," I concluded, letting my eyes drift back to his endless brown ones. They were so dark, darker than any eyes I had ever seen, probably holding deep depths of mysteries awaiting to be revealed. "Maybe it was fate that everything happened the way it did."

"So does that make us a pair of star crossed lovers?"

I wanted to bang my head against a wall. "Of course, you just had to make a reference to Romeo and Juliet, didn't you?"

"Would I be me if I didn't?" he grinned as I rolled my eyes in annoyance, but the slight smile on my face gave me away. "I'm partially being serious though: we could be star-crossed lovers. Maybe we fell in love at first sight when we saw each other on the train, and it was the bond of love we shared that lead me back to you-"

"Romeo?"

"Yep?" he stifled a laugh at my stern expression.

"Shut up."

He watched me with an amused gaze, smiling knowingly to himself as he nodded. "Noted."

He dropped the dramatics, returning to his normal voice since he had been speaking in an overly exaggerated tone that assured me he was only joking.

I broke his gaze abruptly once I realised we'd stopped walking, confused before I looked ahead of us to realise we were right in front of a park. I'd been so absorbed in our conversation I'd barely paid heed to our surroundings, only now realising that we hadn't been heading back to the train station, but rather Romeo had decided to bring us here.

"Why are we at a park?"

"Because fate lead us here," he teased, ignoring my dry laugh in response as he began dragging me along, passing through the park gates and heading towards the swings. The park would have been completely immersed in the dark if not for the distant streetlights casting a soft glow over the playground, providing enough light for us to see.

"Okay, then why would fate decide to lead us to a park of all places?" I rephrased my question as the two of us sat down on the swings. I used my feet to push myself off the ground and gain some movement, whereas Romeo just sat still on his, the gentle sound of creaking from the swing providing a hum of background noise.

"I don't know," he shrugged, watching me with a small smile. "When I think about the park, I immediately think of my childhood." I felt my grip on the chain of the swing tighten involuntarily at his words, forcing myself to keep my expression blank. "I used to come to the park all the time with my family when I was younger."

I didn't.

The memories of my childhood were one big blur of tears, shouting, and a persistent underlying sense of fear. The closest I'd gotten to going to the park with either of my parents were longing glances I caught of it from the backseat of the car before it disappeared from view.