Strawberries || H.S.

F O U R T E E N

Sometimes it's as if you meet someone and you realize that they were meant to be in your life. Whether it may be as a family, as a friend, as a lover, or as a partner, they were meant to meet you. They were meant for you. Mia liked the concept of fate, it made her feel safe. Honestly, though, she didn't know if it were through fate or destiny or sheer luck that she had met Harry, but what she did know is that things happen for a reason. That everything has a purpose. Her purpose, perhaps, she did not know yet. She was too choosy, too flighty to have chosen a serious path for herself. She has so many things going for her but at the same time none. She's was so utterly intelligent and well-spoken, but too fickle and too capricious. Noting had stirred her yet. Nothing had spurred her into action. She just wasn't inspired to become what she had always imagined herself to be. As it was, that image to her is distorted. She didn't know what she wanted to be, she didn't know what she wanted to do. Fate, here, she saw as an excuse. This break, this walking into the unknown with no plan whatsoever, was happening for a reason. In years to come, she believed, she would look back at this time in her life with a wise smile, knowing that it made her all the better.

One thing she was sure of though, was that Harry was meant to be a part of her life. While she may still have been on the path to finding out who she was, she was sure he was part of the answer. Aphrodite had Adonis, and while that love story may have ended in tragedy, if it hadn't have occurred then the world wouldn't have ever had strawberries. This fruit would not exist if it were not for the goddess of love's tears, if it weren't for the love she had felt. 'Fate' Mia thought as she recalled the tale. Everything has a bloody purpose, even if it ends in heartbreak. Even heartbreak can cultivate the sweetest and most colorful of things.

Mia jumps as she feels her phone rings, the silence in the field broken by a rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.

"Hello?" She says with a smirk as she answers. She lazily hangs her feet off the side of the hamock and places the bowl she had upon her stomach by her side.

"Oh, hi." Harry says nervously.

It had merely been a few hours since their first kiss. Perhaps ten hours? Perhaps twelve? Mia was not quite sure, but she knew that it had been less than twenty four. It had been less than a day and already Harry was ringing. It made her stomach flutter.

"How are you?" He mutters.

"Well."

"How'd you sleep?"

"Fine."

He chuckles anxiously, "Mia?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you try to give me an answer with more than one word in it?"

She laughs, "Oops. Sorry."

"See, that's two. Progress."

They both laugh, feeling the nervousness wear off a bit. It wasn't until the line went silent that they both felt it grow a bit awkward once more. Mia had a feeling this nervousness and these butterflies were going to be a constant thing.

"Mia?"

"Harry?"

"What are you doing today?"

"Reading."

"Will you be free tonight?"

"I'm free all the time, you know that."

"I still want to ask."

"Well, I am free."

"Can we do something then? After I get out of work?"

"Of course."