The question surprised me, even though it shouldn’t have. He’d been looking at me like that, like he was worried, ever since the party.
“Nothing happened to me,” I said with a shrug.
Austin paused. His eyes lingered on me, considering something. “You know that drink was meant for you, right?”
I exhaled. Of course I’d thought about that. It was a tickle at the edge of my mind I’d been trying not to scratch. “I know.”
“So,” he said again, “are you okay?”
I breathed out slowly. I tried to gather the right words to explain how I felt. Or at least not sound completely insane. “Do you believe in fate?” I asked, avoiding his gaze.
“Fate?” he echoed, surprised and amused.
“Yeah. Destiny. The plan of life. Whatever you want to call it.”
He was quiet for a second. “Let’s say I do, for argument’s sake.”
I let out a small laugh. “Okay, sure. So… I try to think of it like this: everything happens the way it’s supposed to. Have you ever thought about how, if your parents had just gone to sleep the night you were conceived, you wouldn’t exist? Or even more specific—if they’d done it one minute earlier or later, you’d be a completely different person?”
Austin raised his eyebrows. “Well, I didn’t expect this conversation to involve my parents fucking, but… sure.”
I smiled faintly. “I know, it’s weird. But seriously… what if? What if two soulmates didn’t stop for coffee at the same place? What if someone didn’t get caught at a red light and drove into a head-on crash? What if the person who discovered insulin had ended up a janitor instead of a doctor? Everything’s happened because it was meant to happen.”
Austin looked at me sideways. “Okay… and what does that have to do with tonight?”
“It means it didn’t happen to me because it wasn’t supposed to. Maybe fate knew if Cherry drank that drink, I’d find her in time. And if I had, maybe fate knew Cherry wouldn’t have. It happened the way it was meant to happen. I can’t waste energy on‘what ifs’—because it wasn’t‘what if.’It was‘what is.’” I sighed. “Cherry’s okay because fate knew what she was doing. I trust fate.”
Austin was quiet. Then his voice cut through gently. “Why do you think fate put me in that room, then?”
My thoughts spun for a second, I hadn’t expected the question. I nodded toward Cherry. “I guess you were meant to save her just as much as I was.”
Austin didn’t respond. He just stared at me like I was something to figure out. Like I was a river and he was trying to see what lake I had formed from.
“You’re different, Yellow,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Not really,” I said.
“No, Yellow,” he repeated without hesitation. “You’re different.”
“Can I ask you something?” I said into the air, the question that had been burning a hole in my brain since the day I met him. I took another look at Cherry, whose face was still peaceful as her breaths gently left her nose. I turned away from her at last, feeling confident that she was fine for the moment.
“Sure,” Austin said instantly, though the corners of his eyes crinkled as he said it, like he was hesitant about what my question might be.
“Why were you at that house last weekend?” I asked him, my eyes not shifting from where they had focused on his face.
I’d gotten pretty used to the patterns of addicts. After all, my own flesh was one. Holden had been using for months before I finally caught on, and looking back, his addiction had been written all over his body. But especially his face. His lies had gleamed like fireflies against the blackness of a starless night. I was blind to them then, but in hindsight they were so brilliant they couldn’t be missed. And that’s what I was looking for in Austin’s face. Sure, he might be a nice guy, he might have all the green flags of his removal from the toxic rape culture we all live in, and he might be good looking in just about every way… but if he was an addict, it was an instant stop.
“Ah,” Austin replied, looking down like he was ashamed of his own presence there. “I knew someone there.”
“You know what I’m asking,” I cut to the chase, raising my brow at him. He looked bothered at my question, but not bothered that I had asked. It looked like he was bothered at the fact he had been there at all.
“Nah,” he swiped his nose as he said it, but I was almost too busy looking into his eyes to notice the small movement. He didn’t look like he was lying, but I was still hesitant.
“No?” I repeated his answer.
“I don’t use that shit,” he explained, shaking his head. “I never have. My choice of medicine is strictly herbal.”
“Weed?” I asked him, and when he nodded, I pursed my lips.
