I flip it open again, surprised to find that there are only a few pages left.
Some plans don’t work out the way you expect them to.
Take my father, for instance. I’m sure he didn’t plan to end up divorcing my mom, only to find himself in another family just like the one he left behind.
Or Harmony. She didn’t plan on flying back to New York without me.
Or me. I never planned on being a published author. You can’t, really. You can only hope. You put your story out there into the world and hope that it resonates with people enough for them to want to read it. To readyou.
I shifted gears, obviously, away from my sci-fi middle-grade story about the boy who lost his father in the time warp. That was too real now. I realized that I was struggling to write the ending because I couldn’t imagine a life where that boy actually found his father. And I had. Still, it didn’t make a sliver of difference. The little boy by the window might have been mybrother, the skinny woman mystepmother. But not really. Not in this life. I had no intention of forcing a relationship out of a coincidence. That’s a very different thing than making lemonade when life gives you lemons.
That’s all it was. Just a coincidence, that I should be running late that day and stop to grab breakfast at that exact Cinnabon at that exact time. That he should be standing there by the window, traveling to or from somewhere else, with a woman and a child who I didn’t know, as if he wasn’t just some regular dad from Long Island and he was, instead, a worldlyhuman.
Sometimes worlds collide. And sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they look like they’re on a path with a trajectory that will crash them right into each other, but sometimes a shift in the universe changes the course of those worlds just as they’re at the precipice of something…monumental.
Or, sometimes, something monumental turns out to be just a figment of your imagination.
Because here’s the thing. I called Harmony. It was the first thing I did when I got back to my apartment. I threw my bags on the couch, popped a Tylenol because my head was pounding, and called her right away. I was actually really surprised she hadn’t tried to get in touch with me sooner—especially since I was supposed to be on that flight—so that made me worry that she was mad at me or thought that I had flaked. I figured I had some explaining to do, and I was ready.
Only, my call went to voicemail. The message—a generic one—said, “The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please try again.”
That was weird.
I tried sending a text message. Then, I waited.
When she didn’t call back or text back, I tried again. A few times. And then I waited.
I couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t calling me back. Had I dreamed the whole thing? Was it not the magical experience for her that it was for me?
The waiting drove me mad.
I mean, there I was: home from Aruba after having a whirlwind love affair with a woman who I genuinely believed was my soulmate. Nothing to show for it but a cracked skullcourtesy of my father, who, I’d noted, did not magically appear at the hospital.
He didn’t deserve to be the subject of a book.
Shedid.
Only, she was nowhere to be found.
There was a section on Harmony’s author website with a form to contact her, so I filled it out. I found her mom’s home phone number online and tried to call it, but it was no longer in service. I looked up her social media accounts—Instagram, Facebook. Nothing.
I didn’t want to forget anything about our trip together, so I began to write it all down in the same notebook where I’d started the letter to her on the plane.
It wasn’t long before a manuscript began taking shape.
I waited to hear from her, praying to any deity that would listen to send me a response to my online inquiry.
I continued to write. I couldn’t get the story out of me fast enough. I tried again to reach her. This time, I e-mailed her agent directly. I was vague, but I told him I really wanted—needed—to get in touch with her.
Nothing.
Still, the words continued to flow.
I sent one more message through her website.
And waited some more.
She never wrote back.
