Across the room, someone brushes against the tinsel lining the bar. I swear I can hear the planets spinning from here.
“You literally just discovered that I pulled your note, and now you think I’m your stringmate? Because of this?” He waves the Fate Note in the air.
“Not only because of that. I wanted to tell you at the Hollywood Sign, and I came here tonight to tell you that I want to be together. I thought about all of the signs that brought us together. Even duringour Fate Tests, everything kept us together. And now this. Is this not the biggest sign?” I say, feeling myself start to slowly thaw.
“Rooney, I want to be with you more than you can imagine. But it’s like you said in New York, timing is everything. And right now, the timing couldn’t be worse. You literally just told the world who you are. You have MoMA lined up. I need to focus on getting this promotion. I’ve worked too hard and am so close now. To give us a fair shot, we should wait until the circumstances are right,” he says. “Momentum is building in both of our careers. Let’s follow that thread before we follow ours.”
“Why can’t we have both?” I push back, heat creeping into my cheeks.
“I can’t date you while I’m your liaison. The optics don’t look good, and I’m too close to a promotion to quit.”
I process his words. “You’re probably right,” I finally admit.
“You’ll be in New York for a couple of months in the new year. Where will you be after that?” he asks.
“Back here for the second showcase,” I answer.
“What about after that?”
I set my spoon down against the glass dish. “I don’t know.”
“What about next year, after the program ends?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Exactly. There are so many unknowns. What I do know is that my job is here. Your job is… everywhere. Your career flight path is as unpredictable as a butterfly’s,” he says, his voice thick with emotion.
“Why are you trying to control it?” I ask.
“So I don’t get slapped in the face by your wings,” he says, referencing my own fear. “When things settle with our careers, we can see where we are and if a relationship makes sense for us. But love doesn’t exist from a distance. It’s too hard. It doesn’t work.”
Jack clenches his jaw, his lips set in a firm line. One word inparticular stands out among the others, suspended in its own antigravity chamber.
“Love?” I whisper. Tears prick the backs of my eyes.
He sets his gloved palms on the table like he’s grounding himself. “Rooney, of course I love you. Resisting you has been the biggest test of all. But everything has become intense being together. I literally trespassed for you. Twice. We’ve kissed,” he says, lowering his voice and leaning forward. “I fear how far I’ll go if we don’t cool our jets and take time to widen our orbits.”
I want to focus on the first thing he said. “I love you, too, Jack. I think ever since that night in New York, I’ve loved you.”
Jack’s jaw tightens, the scar on his bottom lip more pronounced in the changing light.
“But fate…” he says, his words trailing.
My peppermint stick has completely dissolved, pink and white slowly spinning on the surface of the beverage like a lunar swirl. Bing Crosby croons lightly over the speakers, the jingling background noise at odds with the pounding in my ears.
“I know you have an issue with fate, Jack. How is that possible when you believe there’s dark matter, an invisible substance that makes up, what, twenty percent of our universe?” I ask.
“Twenty-seven,” he mumbles.
“Thank you for helping me make my point,” I say. “You believe that dark matter is real, even though you can’t see it or feel it. It’s literally a mystery. And yet fate is too difficult to fathom. The signs are more obvious to me now than they’ve ever been. You can’t honestly tell me you don’t see any.”
“We have different interpretations of what signs are,” he says as he rubs his thumb along the back of his spoon.
“You study the universe. You explore it, try to build machines that will get us there in person. Yet when the universe tries to tellyou something, you actively ignore it. The signs are there. Sometimes they’re big, likethis note! Or they’re us meeting over and over again. Being paired together to release a lantern on the night of the Lantern Festival, you choosing me as the artist-in-residence.”
Jack shakes his head vigorously, a strand of hair pushing past his hood and flopping down over his forehead. “Everything you described are coincidences,” he says desperately, almost as if he’s trying to convince himself. He shifts in his seat. “From space, astronauts see Earth, and it’s beautiful. But when they get closer and come back to Earth, they see all of its flaws again.”
“Are you saying I’m Earth?” I ask, making a face.
