Blind Fate

Jake and Lycoris had spent the past hour and a half slowly sipping coffee and just sitting, enjoying each other’s company. With caffeine happily flowing through her veins, Ly could focus enough to work a bit at she chatted with Jake—though not nearly as much as she should have.

She almost felt guilty about not doing very much of the paperwork she needed to finish, but with another, almost overwhelming guilt looming over her, this smaller workplace guilt was hardly noticeable. Besides, she had Jake to distract her.

It didn’t take her long to realize that she was distracting him too. While Lycoris was a very pretty girl, she wasn’t exactly aware of it. She wasn’t used to someone being so interested in her, but Jake hung on her every word. He looked her in the eye as they spoke, sending chills she both hated and loved down her spine. He laughed loudly and often whenever she said something that struck him as funny—though it was generally unintentional on her part. She was just saying whatever came across her mind. Jake had even managed to spill his hazelnut coffee all down the front of his shirt.

Jake was now in the office bathroom, trying to salvage both his jacket and his dignity.

Ly smiled to herself as she scribbled down calculations in a file, pausing only to pull out a calculator to double-check herself. All of a sudden, Ly heard the door to the office rattle. She hadn’t been expecting anyone—everyone in the office had today off. Looking through the glass window in the office door was a blonde woman, about 5’7, with green eyes and a bright smile. She waved gleefully, looking incredibly pleased with herself as she stepped through the door.

“Hey, Ly!” She yelped as she enveloped the other woman in a bear hug.

“Hayden,” Lycoris choked out as she robotically hugged her friend back, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Hayden must have taken the shock and horror on Ly’s face as simple surprise and bounced up in down in excitement as she explained speedily, “You’ve seemed so bummed since that date a few weeks ago and I haven’t talked to you much lately and I had some vacation time at work and I’ve never visited you in the city, so I thought New Years was perfect timing!” She beamed at Ly’s expression, which couldn’t have been pleasant if she looked half as sick as she felt.

Lycoris sputtered for a second at Den’s smile, trying to think quickly, when the worst possible thing happened.

“Hey, Ly!” Jake called from the bathroom, “I think I’ll have to bring my jacket to the-“ He stopped short when he saw the blonde standing there. His smile disappeared and the blood leeched from his face. “Hayden,” he breathed.

Her pretty green eyes flickered back and forth between their seasick faces. The smile was long gone. “What... What the hell?” Her eyes settled on Lycoris and she raised an accusing finger at Jake. “What the fuck is he doing here?” The guilt must have shown through the thin fabric of Ly’s face because suddenly Hayden was shouting curses—calling Lycoris names that she’d never heard Den call anyone, accusing her of anything and everything. Despite all the insults, what hurt most was, “You’re some friend, huh?” thrown at her as Hayden flew out the door, the word ‘friend’ spit from her mouth like poison. In that moment, Ly knew that she’d lost one of the most important people in her life. Without sparing a glance for Jake, Ly ran down the steps, shouting for Hayden to stop, to wait, to let her explain.

For half a moment outside, Lycoris caught Hayden’s sleeve. The blonde whirled around with fire in her eyes. Without a word, she deliberately ripped her sleeve from Ly’s grasp and stalked off. The brown-eyed woman was so shocked, so utterly crushed by the hate she saw when she met those green eyes that it took her a few seconds to resume the chase, following Hayden down into the subway. She knew that Hayden hadn’t been to New York in two years and probably wasn’t familiar with the financial district. Even if Den didn’t want to listen to her, she wanted to at least make sure she was okay.

Lycoris finally caught up to Hayden as a train was pulling up, doors opening to let out a steady stream of commuters. Ly pushed her way to the blonde, calling her name the whole way. Hayden wouldn’t stop though. She shoved her way through the other passengers, wedging herself into the subway car and turning to face the windows as they closed.

Lycoris met Hayden’s eyes as the car began to pull out of the station and felt her heart drop into her stomach as she realized one thing: no forgiveness lived in those eyes—now or ever.