Chapter 2 Fate Is Final #2
She’s joking, but I wince, my mind careening back to that nightmare and all those Fates that I would deem the worst kinds.
“Barbie?” Callie says as we continue down the hall. “Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
She swallows. “You know I trust the Fates more than anyone, right?”
“Of course.”
Her voice gets so low I can hardly hear her. “Well, it’s just… I’ve been thinking… there are plenty of things I’m good at that I don’t want to do every day for the rest of my life.”
“Same.” Though Misty and Bonbon rarely let me do my own hair, I can make a ponytail swoop that seems to defy gravity; that doesn’t mean I want to make ponytails professionally.
She gnaws at her lip. “What if the Fates don’t know that? Or what if they do know but don’t take wants into consideration?”
Let’s hope they do, considering I certainly don’t want to do any of the roles from my nightmare.
But I remember Robin’s steadying words this morning. She’s always been right about everything. She’s right about this, I’m sure of it. “The Fates make no mistakes. They know exactly which role we’re meant to be in. They know best.”
“Right, of course.” Her voice lowers to the softest whisper. “But what if the Fates… don’t always know what’s best for us?”
Everything goes silent. A flock of Robin’s birds that were flying past us in the hall stall in midair.
Students lingering in the corridors stop what they’re doing, pivot toward us, stare.
We’re not outside, but I’m pretty sure the clouds stopped in their tracks, too. Even I look at Callie open-mouthed.
I take Callie’s hand and drag her into an empty classroom, next to the one we were about to walk into.
Her face is red. She’s trembling. She’s always quiet and calm, but right now it’s like she’s a screaming kettle that’s finally reached its boiling point.
The words stream out of her in a hurried whisper.
“What if they don’t know I hate chemistry, even though I won that project?
What if I have to spend the rest of my life in a lab? ”
“Well, I—”
“What if they see that A in PE as a sign that I’m good at physical activity, when I was just running so fast because I was being chased by a bee?
” That single menacing bee is the reason I got to skip all of PE, due to my allergy (thanks, bee).
She goes pale with panic. “I should have just let it sting me!”
“Callie… are you okay?” I put a hand on her forehead. “Do you want to go to Nurse?”
As if on cue, Nurse appears outside the classroom window, because her job comes with the accessory Helicopter Ambulance, and the ability to sense she’s needed before actually being called to assist.
“No, no.” She shakes her head, giving a thumbs-up to Nurse, who nods and flies away.
“Listen,” I say, keeping my voice low. I grab her hands.
“You’re not alone in this… turmoil.” I wince at the word.
I’ve already quelled my nerves, but Callie’s my best friend.
I don’t want her to feel like she’s the only one experiencing pre–Boxing Day stress.
“I just had a dream this morning that I got a bunch of horrible Fates.”
Her eyes widen. “You did?”
I nod solemnly.
She frowns. “And you aren’t—worried now?”
“No!” I exclaim, and it’s true. I don’t feel any of the nerves from this morning. They’ve all officially been exiled. “Everything always works out here. You work hard… and it’s rewarded.” I shrug. “Life is totally fair all the time.”
Callie presses her palms to her eyes. “You’re right. I don’t know why I’m so scared…”
I grab her by the shoulders. “We’ve watched every Boxing Day ceremony since we were little kids, and every graduate has always been placed in the role they were meant to be in. It’s always just made sense. Right?”
She nods, hands still against her eyes.
“Even Sunny is going to get a Fate that’s right for him, Callie,” I continue, laughing. “Whether he deserves one or not.”
“You’re right about that, too,” she mutters.
Finally, her hands drop down to her sides. I wait for her face to clear, but she still looks troubled. “But don’t you wish… do you ever wish you had a choice?”
A gasp pierces the room.
It doesn’t come from me. No, it comes from about a dozen other voices, gasping in sync. We blink, staring at one another, then turn around to see that there is a massive hole in the wall, one we didn’t notice before, which must have been a result of Sunny’s little experiment.
Our entire class is standing there, shamelessly listening to our conversation.
“How much did you hear?” I ask.
“Everything,” the whole class says in unison, including Teacher.
I gape at him, and Teacher just shrugs. “Gossip is like life seasoning.”
Paige is, of course, at the very front of the group, arms crossed. She gives us a withering look. Especially me, even though I barely said anything. “Your lack of faith in the Fates is concerning, Barbie,” she says. She turns to Teacher. “Does that knock down her GPA?”
“No.”
“At least a point?”
“No.”
“She can’t be top of the class and be entertaining these kinds of—”
“No.”
Paige brightens. “Okay. So she’s demoted, and I’ll—”
“No,” the whole class says in unison, because they are tired.
“Okay. Gossip time over,” Teacher says, snapping his fingers, directing us all to our seats. Callie and I walk over the rubble of the hole in the wall toward our desks.
“It’s just Boxing Day jitters,” I whisper to Callie from across the row as everyone gets their notebooks out for our final exam. “Tell me if you still feel like this in a few hours. We can talk more. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” she says back.
But I don’t get the feeling she’ll bring it up again. I want to say something else, make her feel better, but I don’t know how. Before I can keep trying, Teacher places the final on my desk, and our conversation fades away in light of the task in front of me.
Because if there’s one thing I do know, it’s how to take a test.
Exactly one hour later, the bell rings for the last time, a sound as familiar to me as Misty and Bonbon’s rousing tweets.
I’ll never hear that sound again, I think, with a pinch of mourning, as I turn in my final exam to Teacher.
No one else seems too torn up about it. I walk out of the room, only to see confetti made of paper from past assignments being thrown around the hall, and some of Robin’s birds angrily squeaking at the mess.
“I’m so glad school is over, so my real life can begin,” Paige says, smirking at me as I lean against the lockers closest to Callie. “Who cares about school, anyway?”
I roll my eyes at Paige’s comment—if anyone has cared just as much as I have about school all these years, it’s her—but her words sink into my chest, piercing like claws.
I’m good at school. I like school.
School has order. Routine. It’s… expected and learned and controlled.
It’s the only thing I really know. Outside being a student, who am I?
I think of Sunny tinkering for hours on end in his garage, or Callie utterly engrossed in a book, pure joy coursing across her face as she loses herself in fictional worlds.
I don’t have hobbies. I don’t have passions.
I used to paint when I was little, but I haven’t picked up a brush in years.
I consider Callie’s last question to me before the final.
No, I don’t wish I had a choice.
Because I don’t know what I want; I don’t know who I am…
And I don’t need to.
The Fates are going to tell me.
Chirping birds knock me out of my thoughts, and I startle as a pink ribbon is dropped from their beaks, settling across my chest.
I look down.
#1, the sash says. Glitter erupts as all the heart-shaped balloons burst at once, confetti raining down, disappearing just as the flecks of paper touch my skin.
Valedictorian.
It’s official now.
“Congratulations, Barbie,” Teacher calls from the classroom doorway, his smile creasing the corners of his eyes. One of Teacher’s accessories is a pen that grades fast as lightning. “You earned it.”
“Yes, she did!” Callie says, throwing her arms around me, all signs of her previous distress gone.
I open my mouth to check in with her… then close it. Why bring up that unpleasantness again when she looks happy?
Unlike Paige, who visibly seethes and harrumphs before striding down the hall.
Sunny is waiting farther down the corridor, leaning against a wall of pink glittering lockers enchanted to open only for their owners. “Nice,” he says when he sees the sash. He whistles as our trio makes our way downstairs.
Happiness and calm wash over me. I did it. I finally did it. Callie loops her arm through mine, beaming. Her excitement is contagious, doubling my own. I let it fizzle through me like soda pop.
My work is done. I did the best I could.
My future now rests with the Fates.