17 Do You Believe in Fate?
17
Do You Believe in Fate?
It was Isak Dinesen who said, “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.”
I don’t know why, but I remembered that when I was on the ferry looking at the sea, those words sank into me, and I found myself in them. The sweat on my skin when I woke from nightmares. The tears spilled with countless emotions I couldn’t manage to express. The sea that surrounded me, restoring my calm, healing me as I struggled to bear the pain of that process. Because salt burns and stings, but it also helps the wound scar over.
I sucked in a deep breath of sea air. A few days before, I’d made the same trip in the opposite direction, yet I already felt I was different from that person who had looked at the waters with suspicion and fear. Before I knew where they were taking me.
I was starting to realize that this was what courage was: moving forward, confronting uncertainty, facing whatever lies ahead. What I had thought was my comfort zone was just a comfortable prison I had gotten used to by stifling my urge for freedom.
Now I could feel that freedom. It was still vague, but I could sense it taking shape, growing stronger, within me. There was a weightlessness to me, as though I were floating after the chains that had held me to the ground had broken.
Can a whole life’s inertia just vanish in three days? Before Hayley opened the door to that corner of the world for me, I would have said no. I didn’t believe in love at first sight or sudden revelations that appear out of nowhere like a magic trick. For me, that was the stuff of books, fiction and fairy tales, not something that could ever happen in the real world.
But I was wrong.
Three days can alter the course of a whole life. Just like that. And nothing special has to happen. Sometimes the simplest things can make the most powerful changes occur, bringing meaning where there was none before. Sometimes, something happens or someone shows up, and your eyes open in a way they never have. Like that walk with Trey the afternoon before. He’d gotten me to strip my soul bare, to realize what was missing in my life and who I wanted to be.
He had no idea how important that had been for me. How he’d saved me from myself, made me feel hope again.
“You must have something really nice on your mind to be smiling like that,” he said.
“Indeed.” I grabbed the rail to keep from losing balance. The waves in that part of the gulf were big. “Do you believe in fate?”
He offered me one of the chocolate bars he’d bought in Petit Prince before we left. I unwrapped it and took a bite. He did the same, eating half of it in a single bite.
“I don’t think fate is behind everything. Or that every step in our lives is predestined. Because that would mean we were incapable of choosing, and I don’t like the idea of not being in control of my own life.”
How different we were, I thought—how different and how similar at the same time. “Well, I do believe in fate. And I also believe in coincidences and lucky accidents.”
“Lucky accidents? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Lucky accidents are these things that might seem bad at first, but they end up leading to something good. Like, I don’t know, your car breaks down in the middle of the highway and only one car stops to help, and out of it steps Chris Pratt.”
He didn’t seem convinced. “What are the chances that would ever happen? One in a few million?”
“Still, like you just said: there is a chance. And fate and hope go hand in hand.”
“I think what you’re calling a coincidence or a ‘lucky accident’ is a series of circumstances that depend on a person and their environment,” he said. “That’s all. There’s not some genie that’s granting your wishes. The universe isn’t tracing out a plan for us or trying to give us cosmic signs about what we should do.” He turned around and leaned his hips against the railing, back to the sea. “What you call fate is just us and the decisions we make. If your car breaks down and you’re stranded on the highway, the luckiest accident you could have is for a tow truck to show up.”
“Well, I like the idea of fate. But I also like the idea of life being a choose-your-own-adventure book where the story changes depending on the choices you make.”
“Wait, so you’re saying each person can have several different fates?”
“Exactly!” He got it. Or he got me, at any rate.
“Do you think it’s fate that brought us together on this island?” he asked.
“I’d like to think so.”
He leaned in, reached over, and stroked my cheek with the tip of his fingers. “Well, then, maybe I’ll end up believing in it, too.”
It was late afternoon when we reached Souris. We’d brought his SUV on the ferry, and we drove it out past the city, heading toward the west. I did as I’d promised, trusting Trey and letting him take the lead without asking any questions.
The sun stained the sky orange, and I stared at it through the windshield, enjoying the play of colors as the darkness started to gather. The wind coming through the window ruffled my hair. It was cool and smelled of damp earth. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and when I opened them, I found myself surrounded by pastures and magic forests.
The roads were practically empty. The island didn’t have any big cities like the other provinces of Canada, but its rural countryside was simple and charming.
We talked about everything and nothing while the music played softly in the background. We shared the same favorite group, and since I was no longer scared of looking silly in front of him, I turned up the volume and sang at the top of my lungs.
Long before we got there, I realized we were headed to Charlottetown. I remembered the roads from my own trip a few days ago. But I didn’t say anything. I liked the look on Trey’s face when he was thinking he was going to surprise me.
But surprise me he did.
We parked next to an information center for tourists and walked through the center of town before getting dinner on the patio of the Water Prince Corner Shop. We ordered fish cakes and fried clams, then headed to the famous ice cream shop COWS on Queen Street. I ordered the apple crisp flavor; he picked maple walnut. We ended the night sitting outside at a bar listening to live music.
“Another?” Trey asked after downing his second shot.
My throat was burning and I couldn’t get my vocal cords to work, but I nodded.
He pushed his way through the crowd and headed toward the bar. He was taller than everyone, and he was noticed, especially when he walked past the women. One of them tried to get his attention and I frowned, trying to pretend it didn’t bother me. He didn’t even notice her. He seemed oblivious to how sexy he was, or at least acted like all that attention didn’t matter to him.
That was one more proof that he wasn’t the boy I used to know…
He was different. Now he was…
He was…
He was a hurricane. Fire. Rain splashing a window. Sand blown up by the wind. Sweet wine. Chocolate melting on your tongue. Sunlight. Words spoken on the porch. The savor of a kiss. Throaty laughter. The soft touch of fingers on skin. Music, silence, air. Heartbeats.
That was the alcohol talking. I’d never been able to hold my liquor.
Late at night, we went back to the car and Trey drove to Fitzroy Hall, a handsome bed-and-breakfast where he’d reserved two rooms.
Lying down, I thought to myself that it had been a perfect night. I realized that there was so much more to being alive than I’d thought about. Life meant talking, laughing, listening, smelling, tasting. Touch. New experiences.
The next morning, we got up late, had breakfast, gathered our things, and went to the car. I was curious, questions dancing on the tip of my tongue, and it was getting harder and harder to hold them back.
“You ready?” Trey asked me.
I nodded, feeling excited.
I watched the city speed by as we left it behind on the highway. The sky was clear, and the sun was hot through the windshield. It’s strange how things change sometimes. And how others never do. Everything I felt was still too intense—the good and the bad. I was diving into my feelings as if into a deep pool, reaching the bottom, holding my breath. Sometimes the pressure vanished and I could breathe again, but sometimes I was trapped down there for days.
An idea occurred to me just then, a thought loud as thunder: my decision was going to have consequences, direct and indirect ones. People would react to it, and I didn’t know how to face their reactions.
“You’re quiet,” Trey said. I turned to him and nodded. “A penny for your thoughts?” he continued.
“You’ll have to do better than that. A penny won’t get you much nowadays.”
“Fine, name your price. Just let me know what’s going on in that head of yours.”
I took off my sandals, curled my legs up in the seat, and hugged my knees.
“I just keep thinking about how I’m about to become the owner of a small independent bookstore, and I don’t even know if I can pay the bills. And how I picked that over being someone.”
“You are someone. And you’re not just going to be the adorable owner of a cute little bookstore, you’re also going to be a professional writer, and one day when you’re rich and famous and millions of people are buying your books, you’ll realize you did the right thing.”
I felt almost embarrassed at his inexplicable faith in me. “I hope so, because my father’s going to disinherit me. I’ll be exiled from the family home and probably forced to change my last name.”
“You really think he won’t support you?” Trey asked, unsure whether or not I was being serious.
“I know he won’t.”
“I mean, I get that at first it will be hard for him to accept. It is a big change. But when he sees how happy you are…”
I shook my head. “No, Trey. My relationship with my father is complicated. He rarely agrees with what I do or how I do it.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged and started gnawing at a little strip of dead skin on my lower lip.
“I don’t know.” He reached over and clutched my hand, and his fingers touched the bare flesh of my thighs, but intimate as the gesture was, I didn’t bat him away. “I’ve always wanted to take the reins in my life, but in the end, I back down. I’ve never managed to take the last step. I’ve never known how, or maybe I have, but I was too busy worrying about what other people would think to consider my own needs and desires. That’s the truth. And having him constantly in my head held me back because my father’s never approved of anything about me. There’s no making him happy. At least I never have and I doubt I ever will, and as long as I can’t, he’ll go on treating me like the worst mistake he’s ever made.”
“I had no idea. Your brother and sister never mentioned that.”
I forced a smile and turned to him. This was the first time I’d been honest with anyone about it. “It’s different for them, you know? I love Hoyt and Hayley, but I can’t help envying them, too, even hating them a little when I see how well they get along with him. I’d have done anything, literally anything, to connect with my father, even just once. But I’m over it. I’m too tired to keep trying.”
“I’m so sorry, Harper. I had no idea things were like that.”
“No! It’s fine! I’m fine!” I tried to be more enthusiastic than I actually felt. “I’ve been following my plan B for years without ever even trying my plan A. Well, now that’s over. I want to do what I’ve always dreamed of: write. Write as if each page might be the last one I wrote before I died.”
He didn’t respond, and I didn’t need him to, and him knowing I didn’t need it thrilled me. He slowed down and came to a stop on the shoulder, leaving the motor running. And that man who had burst into my life unexpectedly and had made me believe in my dreams bent so close to me I could feel the heat in his exhalations.
His lips rubbed mine, almost without touching them.
And from instinct, I closed my eyes and waited.
I felt him again, but surer this time, pressing into me with passion as his hands held my face. It was sweet and delicate, tender and devastating. I yielded to that kiss, and I gave back as much as I got. I don’t know how long it lasted; I didn’t know kissing a man could feel like that. When his tongue wrapped around mine, I was certain I never wanted to kiss anyone else that way again.
I realized something then, and the realization gathered force as we continued touching each other: I loved him. And knowing that terrified me.
I pulled back, almost out of breath, though it took all of my strength not to leap at him. “I think this was a mistake,” I said.
He smiled as if he knew something I didn’t, a secret, and rubbed my cheek with the back of his hand. “I love those pretty things you say,” he said, giving me one last peck. “Now close your eyes and promise me you won’t open them again until I tell you. We’re about to arrive somewhere. I want it to be a surprise for you.”