The Sweetest Kind of Fate

by Crystal Cestari

  Am I broken? Is my brain bleeding? I quickly turn and try to make eye contact with some rando in the cafeteria; a freshman girl happens to catch my stare, and I see it: she’s frolicking with a cute leading lady, all happiness and happily ever after. Okay, so, clearly I’m not defective, but some screw is loose in Kim and Charlie’s future; something has thrown their love story off track. I have no precedent for this; I’ve never had a match un-match, if that’s even what’s happening. But having this static pop up for both Charlie and Kim after their allegedly unsuccessful kiss has me more interested in the event than I ever thought possible.

  “Amber, I have to tell you something,” Kim starts, looking nervous. “Um, Charlie kissed me.” She waits for the inevitable blowback, but when I don’t react, she twists up her face in confusion.

  “Oh, yeah, I know already,” I say, working overtime to iron out my nerves.

  “Y-you do? And you’re still choosing to sit here?” Kim looks at Amani for a lifeline, clearly debating whether she should jump ship.

  “Yes. I want you to tell me about it. Every detail,” I say, folding my hands on the table. Amani gives Kim a reassuring nod, but Kim is not convinced. “No, really, this isn’t a trick. Charlie is supposed to be your match, but…something weird has happened.”

  “What do you mean, weird?”

  “Well,” I say, “usually when I look at either of you, I see scenes of you both together, being all…lovey.” I swallow to keep bile from coming up. “But last time I saw Charlie, those images weren’t there. And looking at you now, he’s erased.”

  “Erased?” Kim asks. “Is there someone in his place?”

  Hmm, how to put this delicately. Actually, Kim, right now it looks like you’re destined to disappear into nothingness. Congrats! “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Well, that’s depressing,” she says, sitting back in her seat.

  “I mean, yeah, that doesn’t sound great. But honestly, I’ve never had this happen before, so I don’t know what it means,” I say, trying to be comforting although I’m still in need of comfort myself.

  Amani speaks up. “I think what Amber’s trying to say is that she needs your help to fill in these blanks.”

  “O-kay,” Kim says cautiously. “Just promise you won’t get mad, because it wasn’t my fault.”

  I make a cross-my-heart motion, even though I really can’t keep a promise like that.

  Kim starts. “There’s really not so much to tell, I guess. After the winter carnival, we had a follow-up MA meeting, to talk about how the event went, how it could be better next year, blah, blah. I wasn’t totally listening, since I’m graduating, so who cares about next year, you know? And Charlie…he was there—physically—but mentally, it was pretty clear he was elsewhere. He kept giving me weird looks, like he was mad at me or wanted something from me? It was super uncomfortable. When the meeting was over, he asked if we could talk, and since I knew everything was so hard between the two of you, I wanted to just stay out of it. Then the next thing I knew, we were lip-to-lip.”

  Even though I’m dying inside, I maintain eye contact the entire time, waiting to see if any part of this recap will stir up an accompanying visual. But there’s nothing, NOTHING AT ALL.

  Kim continues. “I pushed him off me, like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ And he just buried his face in his hands, saying he was sorry, and that he just ‘had to know.’ I had no idea what that meant, not until Amani told me about the match thing.” She pushes around some unidentifiable meat on her tray with her fork, taking a minute to choose her next words. “This whole thing is crazy, Amber. I wish you would’ve told me earlier. Then you would’ve known I don’t have any feelings for Charlie.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No, no buts,” she says with more force than I thought she could muster. Kim has always been a gentle unicorn girl, but now she’s giving me the horn. “The kiss…it was like nothing, free of any emotion besides maybe sadness. Charlie didn’t kiss me out of passion; he kissed me because he was dying inside and was looking for some kind of relief. He kissed me because he wants you.”

  It’s the weirdest sentence in the history of language, but somehow in this context, it makes sense. Amani squeezes my leg under the table as my heart swells.

  I’ve handled this all wrong. Why didn’t I just say something about the match? That’s what I’m supposed to do, right? A matchmaker isn’t supposed to keep information under lock and key, and by doing so, I sent myself on a pain spiral, tormenting myself, Charlie, Amani, and Kim in the process. I was so afraid of the truth destroying me, I didn’t even think that maybe it could set me free.

  I’m trembling, but for the first time in a while, it’s not out of fear. There’s a glimmer of hope building inside me, lighting me up in a way that’s been dark and dormant. Somehow I feel like this kiss has set off a cosmic string of events, and now it’s up to me to connect the dots. Screw the Fates, screw destiny; what was meant to be has gone and passed, and new possibilities await.

  “Thank you, Kim. I mean it,” I say. “This was more helpful than you could ever know.”

  As if I’m being filled with helium, I rise from my seat, my feet carrying me out of the cafeteria. I run straight to Charlie’s locker and wait for him there, practically exploding with excitement. I want to tell him that I’m sorry, that I was wrong, and that I love him, really love him. I want to declare mutiny against everything I’ve known about love, and step bravely into the unknown. And I want to do it with him beside me.

  But when the bell rings and he hasn’t stopped by, I deflate slightly, trudging off to class in defeat. I spend every following passing period looking for him outside his classes, but he’s nowhere to be found. Did he stay home today? Damn him! Charlie, how can you not be here when I’m having a revelation?! I send him a can we talk? text, but to no reply.

  The second school’s over, I’m out the door, hailing a cab for the Gold Coast. I tumble out at Charlie’s building, the doorman (with whom I’m well acquainted) gesturing me inside. My heart pounds on the elevator ride up, and by the time I’m knocking at his door, I’m practically on the verge of hysterical tears. Please, Charlie, PLEASE answer the door.

  As the door opens, I’m ready to fling myself into his arms, but luckily I refrain, since it’s his dad, John, who greets me.

  “Amber!” he says, wiping his giant football-player hands on an apron that reads “Kiss the Cook.” “This is a surprise.”

  “Yeah, um, samesies,” I reply, suddenly feeling self-conscious. What is John doing home at this time? Shouldn’t he be overseeing Chicago’s well-being? I can’t profess my love to Charlie with his dad in the next room!

  John smiles. “I came home early to make a surprise dinner for Charlie. He’s been so down lately, but nothing turns a frown upside down like homemade lasagna!”

  I’d prefer homemade pie, but I get the gesture. “Is he here?”

  “No, but I expect him any minute now. You can come in and wait,” he says, stepping aside to let me in.

  I’ve never been here without Charlie. Usually, I’m so focused on his cute face, the details of his luxury penthouse don’t really register. Everything feels so…grand, while my insides are slowly caving in. I have all these emotions and no way to release them! Trapped, I figure I’d better put my mental energy toward something else before my brain short-circuits.

  I take a seat on a kitchen barstool, while John resumes stirring the marinara sauce bubbling on the stove. The Blitzman kitchen is something out of a Pinterest fantasy, with beautiful quartz countertops and top-of-the-line appliances; it’s light-years away from the tiny galley setup we Sands work with. I can’t believe I’ve never asked Charlie to let me bake here.

  “Smells good,” I offer, realizing I haven’t really talked to John since the whole Cassandra debacle. He seems good, considering that a leprechaun stole his heart and tried to trick him into marrying her only a few short months ago.

  “It’s an old Blitzman
recipe,” he says, adding a pinch of basil. “Hopefully it’ll do the trick.” He fills a stockpot full of water, then pulls out a box of lasagna noodles from the pantry. “How’s your mom? We’ve been playing phone tag.”

  “Oh, she’s…” And that’s when I remember: John! Mom’s best bud! He can surely tell me something about her past! Seeing as how I saved him from marrying a gold-digging leprechaun, I figure he owes me one. “She’s been better. I mean, this whole Victoria thing has her pretty rattled.”

  He shakes some pasta in the pot. “Yeah. I’ve never been a fan.”

  “I can’t picture them being friends,” I add, hoping he’ll pick up what I’m putting down.

  “It’s a good thing they’re not anymore, because it almost ruined our relationship,” John admits.

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. Your mom was not herself, suddenly getting into trouble all the time, and playing around with spells she’d never even thought to touch before.”

  “Like what?” I press.

  “Don’t know for sure; it’s not my realm, clearly.” He turns back my way to grate some cheese. “But I thought I was gonna lose her. It’s a miracle she got pulled out when she did.”

  “How? What changed?”

  The mayor looks up at me. “She met your dad.”

  I knew this, kinda, from reading Mom’s grimoire. But John’s eyewitness account makes it even more real. He reads my face, trying to determine if he should go on or not, and when I don’t show any results of inner turmoil, he continues. “Even though her involvement with Victoria was alarming, being with your dad was an addiction of a different nature. The obsession was mutual, but most harmful toward Lucy.”

  I’m no cheerleader for my absentee father, but I don’t understand what he’s getting at. “But why?” I wonder. “If she turned away from black magic for him, wasn’t that good?”

  For some reason, John’s face turns even darker than when he was talking about Victoria. “Sure, but she almost gave up magic completely. Tom pretended to be intrigued by her talent, but really, it scared him. The longer they were together, the more he tried to steer her away from witchcraft. He thought it was a hobby, something she did for fun. He never understood that it was part of her, essential to her existence.”

  Suppressing a supernatural talent is not healthy. Back when Amani was fighting to reject her precog ways, she would turn all poltergeist when a vision did manage to break through, eyes spinning and limbs shaking. Only recently has she been able to glimpse into the future without going full freak show. Mom repeatedly lectured her about being true to herself, about how much harm Amani was inducing. I thought Mom was just reciting from some Official Supernatural Handbook, not speaking from personal experience.

  John shakes his head while slicing tomatoes. “Because she loved him, she almost gave up a part of herself.”

  Now that is a resonant theme. If I were sitting under a lamp right now, it would be lighting the hell up, because a big piece of the puzzle just fell into place. No wonder Mom didn’t want to help Iris transform into a mermaid! It wasn’t about messing with the Fates or harnessing darker powers—she didn’t want the siren giving up a part of herself in the name of love. Having been burned before, she was trying to protect Iris from traveling down a similar path. And Victoria, being the vindictive witch she is, was probably dying to throw this back in Mom’s face.

  So many complicated feelings about love. I wonder how Mom felt when her only daughter emerged as a matchmaker, destined to spread the emotion that almost destroyed her. It couldn’t have been easy. I spent a long time thinking she was disappointed I wasn’t born a witch, but maybe instead she was sad I was accessing the emotion that caused her so much pain.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking like this about your dad,” John says, pausing.

  “It’s fine.” I brush it off, though his story has taken some of the wind out of my sails. “It’s not like—”

  Just then, the front door opens and Charlie walks in. He drops his bag and hangs up his Manchester jacket before taking a deep inhale of the wafting Italian aromas. “Hey, something smells…” He turns and spots me, face morphing into shock. “Oh. Hey.”

  I give a little wave, gritting my teeth in an awkward smile.

  “I’m making lasagna!” John declares, slicing the tension with a metaphorical knife.

  “My favorite,” Charlie confirms quietly. He’s glued to his spot, and the three of us share an uncomfortable silence.

  “You know, dang, I got marinara on my sleeve; I’d better go rinse it off before it stains.” John makes a quick exit, leaving us alone to the sound of bubbling sauce.

  “Wh-what are you doing here?” Charlie asks.

  I bite my lip, unable to proceed with my earlier plan. While I’d like to run across this giant apartment and throw myself into his arms, it just isn’t the right time or place.

  “I texted you earlier,” I say.

  “Oh. Sorry, my phone died during Chem.”

  “Oh.”

  We’re still standing several feet apart, neither knowing whether to advance or stay put. From this distance, I can’t lock eyes to see if his static filter is still in place. The awkwardness is killing me, and Charlie looks equally tortured. He nervously rolls up his sleeves, bright flames and scales from his dragon tattoo peeking through. His face is flushed, and even though this is his home, he darts his eyes around like it’s unfamiliar territory.

  John walks back in and, upon seeing us still stuck in the same spots, almost tries to spin back around to give us more time. But it’s too late, and anyway, my earlier plan will have to take a rain check.

  “Well, I should let you guys get to your dinner,” I say, crossing the room to grab my coat. Charlie doesn’t move, and our arms brush up against each other as I bundle up. Even through the fabric, the close contact gives me goose bumps, and I look up at him expectantly as he shares my intense gaze. I feel his breath on my cheek as I’m flooded with a vision, or anti-vision, since it’s just a jumbled discord of nothingness. Still, I let the chaos play out between us, until finally I’m left with his forest-green eyes.

  Drenched in pine with golden flecks peeking through, I don’t think I’ve ever fully appreciated how beautiful they are. With no written future, I can finally see.

  “MMM, a little more length. Her hair’s in a bob, not a bowl cut.”

  Bob sweeps his pencil around the page, while my hopeful customer looks on. The shop is positively buzzing, and I can’t tell if it’s because it’s Saturday or the full moon is almost upon us. This always seems to happen around celestial events; people get subconsciously wound up, being pulled by forces they can’t feel or recognize. Scientists may say the moon has no effect on our moods or motivations, but the magical community knows the truth. Tides change, and people flock to the shop, looking for answers to cloudy questions. It’s good for business, anyway.

  “Does she have a nice butt?” my customer asks with sincerity. Ugh. I try not to cringe, because I get this question more often than I’d like. I’m supposed to be delivering true love, not true booty. “I always pictured myself with a girl with a nice butt.”

  “You won’t be disappointed!” I say in my “you’re paying me by the minute” voice. I’m sure the girl Bob’s busy sketching will be into what this superficial beefcake offers, so it’ll all work out in the end. “But my partner here will only be drawing her face.”

  “Sure. Awesome.”

  It’s weird, holding a dude’s hands when he’s talking about butts, but I hold on, relaying the final details to Bob. Behind this guy, a few more hopeless romantics are queued up, meaning I better hustle if I’m to release all my Cupid’s arrows before closing. It’s been a while since I sat here, as I haven’t really been in the mood for talking romance. After getting major interference from looking into Charlie’s and Kim’s eyes, I worried my matchmaker signals were broken, but I’ve had no problems matching all my customers today, seeing everything from b
eauty marks and hidden fangs to how they fill out their jeans. Since everyone else’s romcoms are still playing in high-def 3-D, Charlie’s offline visions are raising my hopes like freshly baked cake. Which is to say, deliciously.

  Butt Guy finishes up, and I’m on to the next. I match a partial pixie with a farmer, a kindergarten teacher with an insurance salesman, and a vampire with a hematopathologist (go figure). The shop is finally starting to clear out, so once the vamp skips off, I bend down to grab a bite of coffee cake I stashed under my table, since I’m in desperate need of sugar. I end up wolfing down the whole thing in three massive mouthfuls and lay my hands down on the table before I’ve even finished chewing, just as my next patron sits down. A woman wearing a fur hood clutches my fingers and shakes her coat back to reveal her face. I almost choke when I see it’s Victoria.

  “Ahhh!” I scream, spitting crumbs everywhere. I yank my hands free and jump back against the wall. “I touched her cloven hooves! I am unclean!”

  Upon seeing Victoria’s face, Bob goes stone-cold, eyebrows permanently raised in shock. Mom runs over, immediately placing herself in between the wicked witch and me and Bob. Victoria feigns shock at our alarm, then slowly stands, revealing a black dress with fabric that somehow looks wet. It’s an effective scare tactic; between the massive animal carcass on her back and the slimy sheath on her front, she looks like something that just crawled out of a cave (one stocked with overpriced styling and tanning products but a cave nonetheless).

  “You are not welcome here,” Mom says, fists clenched at her sides. I hope to Gods she has some sort of talisman or repellent powder hidden in there.

  “Goodness! Is that how you treat all your clientele?” Victoria makes a tsk-tsk sound, waving a shaming finger. “That can’t be good for customer satisfaction, Lucille.”