by Cat Patrick
“I hope you like yams, Christopher,” she says. “They’re very good for you.” He shoots me a look and crinkles his nose but then stands to help my mother.
“If you made them, I’m sure they’re delicious,” he says. He takes the food from her hands and hops over to set it on the side table. It wasn’t the best of circumstances for them to meet, him frantically calling her from the hospital, but after the first day I kind of like the way she is around him. She’s very … motherly.
Juju sets her sippy cup on my white blanket before trying to yank the IV tube from my hand. “No, no,” my mother says sweetly to her. “That’ll hurt Coco.” She busies my little sister with her cell phone, and Juju makes her way to the hospital chair on the other side of the bed.
“Albert is entertaining your aunt Claudia at the moment,” Mom says, pulling some paper plates out of the bag. “We should probably include him in our prayers.” When she smirks, I choke out a laugh, surprised that my mother can be sarcastically funny when I’m laid up in a hospital bed. I think we’re more alike than I realized.
“There’s no silverware,” Chris says after everything is unpacked. “I’ll grab some from the cafeteria.” He grabs his crutches and leaves. When he’s gone, my mom turns to me. “I really like that kid,” she says. “He reminds me a lot of your grandfather—sort of goofy, but in that really endearing way.”
I smile, her approval of Chris making it feel more real somehow. Maybe it’s the holiday spirit or maybe it’s the drugs still coursing through me, but as she comes to lay a napkin over my lap, my eyes tear up. “I miss you, Mom,” I whisper.
“I miss you, too,” she says, reaching to brush my hair away from my face.
“Living with Dad and Debbie,” I start, “you know it’s not because of you, right?” There’s a flash of hurt across her face, but she nods.
“I know you like it there. So long as you come and stay with me sometimes, I’ll get over it.” The last weight, the last bit of guilt, leaves then. I lay my head back, watching the scene contently. The door opens and Chris reappears with a handful of plastic bags filled with clear silverware.
While Juju is distracted, my mother and Chris pull up chairs as we share a meal. Mom can’t stay long, so Chris and I indulge in pumpkin cheesecake alone as she gathers up her things. Despite the fact that I’m in the hospital, she still has her own Thanksgiving to lead at her house.
“Thanks for the food, Mom,” I say as she comes over to give me a kiss good-bye. “And the company.”
She smiles, looking as thrilled as I’ve ever seen her. “Anytime, Coco,” she says. “I’ll be back in the morning.” She says good-bye to Chris and then takes Judith’s outstretched hand and leads her out of the room, closing the door behind them.
Once they’re gone, Chris sets his drink aside and then comes over to ease onto the bed next to me. He lifts my unbroken arm to take my hand and kiss my fingers.
“Those yams were disgusting,” he murmurs. “I’m just lucky she didn’t make me try that green bean casserole.”
“Maybe at Christmas,” I say, closing my eyes as Chris kisses my shoulder through the hospital gown. “Or New Year’s.” I’m a little breathless as his lips touch my neck, his kisses sweet and mostly innocent—unlike my thoughts. “Easy now, we’re in a hospital,” I joke.
“I’m going to get under the covers with you, okay?” His voice is serious.
“Okay.”
Chris climbs in, curling around me as I snuggle close. It’s only a minute before I feel the first shudder, hear his sniffle as his tears fall on my skin. I thread my fingers through his blond hair and say nothing. He doesn’t talk—maybe can’t talk—for a long time. His arms are locked around me like a vise, his breath warm as he buries his face in my hair.
“I was so scared,” he whispers eventually. “First at the accident—you were so still, it was like you were gone.” He chokes up. “Then waiting for you to wake up, your surgery. Caroline, I can’t handle the idea of losing you. I can’t—”
“Stop,” I say, pulling back so I can look at him. “I’m here. Just like fate, remember? You couldn’t lose me if you tried.”
Chris rests on his elbow, gazing down at me. His eyes are bloodshot but still so blue. He puts his palm on my cheek, checking me over one last time before he leans down to kiss me—telling me to stay, stay with him—and to never run away again.
EPILOGUE
Simone, Natalie, and I are splayed out on the couch on a summer Sunday, watching an interview on E! with River Devlin about his stint in rehab and the collapse of Electric Freakshow.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Natalie says through fingertips, as if the breakup of our favorite band is on par with a national disaster. “They were so good together.”
“All good things must come to an end,” Simone says ominously.
“Not all good things,” I say, smiling as I think of Chris.
“Vomit,” Simone says good-naturedly. I throw a piece of popcorn at her—which she dodges, then eats—and refocus on the TV. The interviewer is asking about examples of times when there were differences of opinion among band members.
“There were too many to count,” River says, shifting in his chair and tossing back his hair like it’s a tic more than a necessity. “But I mean, like, take ‘Magnets for Fate.’ Huge hit, right?”
The interviewer nods. “I should say so—it spent a year in the top five.”
“Right,” River says, his voice gravelly. “That was one that I wrote, and I still to this day don’t think Nicky and Argent even got it. I’ve seen them out there, talking about what it meant to them, and they totally missed the fu—”
Beep.
“—point, man.”
It makes me like him more for calling the gorgeous host “man.”
“Yes, I’ve seen the interviews in question,” she says, and it comes off like she’s trying to prove that she did her homework. “It seems like the song’s message is that all of us are living a life set out for us by destiny. By fate.”
River slams his hand to his knee. “No, man!” he says, running his hands through his too-long hair. “That’s what I mean! No one gets it. But they buy it. They spend their allowance to download it. And yet they have no idea what they’re singing along to.”
“Why don’t you explain it to us, then?” the interviewer says, clearly annoyed.
“I don’t think I should have to,” River says, shifting again. The interviewer looks at him expectantly. “Fine,” he says. “It’s just … the point is that yeah, we’re fated to live a certain life. But it’s not like we’re being mind controlled or something. There’s a little thing called free will.”
“So you’re saying we have control over our lives?” the interviewer asks. “That we can change our fate?”
“I’m saying we have freedom to make mistakes,” River says, shaking his head. “I’m saying that our mistakes—one mistake or many of them—don’t define us. They don’t derail us. We end up where we need to be in the end.” He pauses. “But hopefully having learned something from our stumbles … having grown into better people because of them.”
“It seems like we’re saying the same thing here.” The interviewer reaches over and takes a sip from an Electric Freakshowmug.
River gets a funny look on his face. “Is that coffee?” he asks. She nods. He laughs to himself, and I imagine that I know what he’s thinking … about the lyrics at the end of “Magnets for Fate.”
And no matter where you sit, how fast you sip … The coffee tastes the same on magnet lips.
River stands and pulls out his microphone; with a stunned interviewer gawking after him, he walks off the stage.
“Well, that’ll earn him some headlines tomorrow,” Simone says. “Pure publicity stunt.”
“I can’t believe he just did that,” Natalie says, like she’s his mother and she’s disappointed in him. She and Simone start chatting about how River used to be so much nicer in intervie
ws and I zone out, getting it. Getting him.
For some reason, in that moment, I think of the night Gram died. I think of how Simone offered me the choice to stay or go—and how it so easily could have gone the other way. For a moment, I wonder what life would look like had I gone down the other path. But then I think of River Devlin and what he was trying to say. He wasn’t saying that I’d end up in the same place either way so it didn’t matter. He was trying to say that whatever life I lived because of the choice I made is important. And maybe I found my way back to basically the same place—who really knows—but the mistakes I made make me who I am.
We may be drawn to our fates like magnets, but whatever we pick up along the way means something. Mistakes mean something.
“I have to go call Chris,” I say, standing from the couch. “I’ll be right back.”
I run upstairs to my room and shut the door, then instead of calling Chris, I write the first piece of fan mail ever in my life. I write about the night Gram died. I write about my life ever since. And who knows if River Devlin will see it. Who knows if he’ll even care. But in that moment, I need to tell him that I spent my allowance downloading a song that I love—but also one that I understand.
Four weeks later, I open my e-mail and nearly have a heart attack.
Waiting there above a forwarded viral video from Simone and a love note from Chris is a message from The. River. Devlin. Or, I think cynically, whoever writes e-mails for him. But when I open the message—when I see the content—I know it’s authentic. I know he wrote it. It’s five words, written like they’re a continuation of a conversation. No hello. No good-bye. Just a glimpse into his mind. Just enough to hear “thank you” even when he didn’t say it.
I sit there awhile, smiling, reading the words over and over again:
You made the right choice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the following people:
Their agents, Dan Lazar and Jim McCarthy.
Fabulous editor Jennifer Klonsky.
Much-loved Liesa Abrams, and the entire team at Simon Pulse.
Their author networks, dear friends, and families near and far … especially, as always, their grandmothers.
Just Like Fate
published in Australia in 2013 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
eISBN 9781743581155
First published in the USA in 2013 by
Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia
Text copyright © 2013 Cat Patrick and Suzanne Young
Cover photographs copyright © 2013 by Getty Images
Cover designed by Jessica Handelman