Serendipity

The most important lesson that I have learned in life so far is that being young meant being wrong all the time. You are going to mess up the lyrics of a song. You are going to wear shoes that do not go with that outfit. You are going to kiss the wrong person a lot more than once. You're going to make mistakes, and that's okay, because the biggest mistake you could ever make is being too afraid to make one.



I absolutely hated the word love. Not because I had a bad experience with it, but because the word itself is just so confusing. You can love so many people in so many different ways, and that's what makes it so perplex. For example, a beautiful boy just comes waltzing into your life one day and, later on down the road of whatever relationship you have developed together, tells you that he loves you. There are multiple ways to interpret those three words, but it would be both rude and awkward to ask him which type of love he feels for you. Does he love you the way he loves his sisters, or his friends? Does he love you in the way he loves his favorite food? Or are you lucky enough to have this beautiful boy love you the way Noah loves Allie? The way Jack loves Rose? The way Romeo loves Juliet?

If there were different words for all the different types of love in the world, I don't think I would have such a problem with it. Maybe I'll come up with those words someday, if I'm ever lucky enough to become that creative. Or, maybe I'll just have to learn to deal with the cringing that my body goes through every time that four letter word carelessly slips through somebody's lips.

"Why are you being so emotional right now?" Kate asked, nonchalantly flipping through an issue of Vogue. It wouldn't surprise me to actually see her in one of those magazines someday. Kate was tall and blue eyed and naturally blonde - three things which I was the exact opposite of. My brown-to-blonde ombré hair and hazel eyes and five foot five frame had nothing on her.

I sighed through gritted teeth, throwing my book to the side and disappearing underneath the off-white duvet on my bed. A loud sniffle filled the apartment. "You don't know what I've been through, Kate!" I exclaimed, flailing around in an attempt to find comfort where there was none, "I read John Green novels!"

Kate, with a laugh, put her hands up in surrender and tossed her magazine back into the basket. She approached my bed cautiously, not able to make out where my figure was under the massive, thick blanket. After failing to locate my whereabouts, Kate exhaled loudly and grasped the visible corner of the duvet, pulling it off of the bed entirely. "Come on, India, you need to stop grieving over this break-up."

Break-up was another word that made me cringe, because I did have a bad one. "No," I whined, stretching out the vowel sound. Why couldn't Kate understand that all I wanted to do was eat double stuffed Oreos with peanut butter and pour my emotions out over The Fault In Our Stars? In my current emotional state, I did not want to interact with strangers. I didn't want to interact with anybody, really, but I had no choice when it came to Kate. We lived together, after all.

"Get up!" She tried again. Realizing that I was just not in the mood to go out and do something fun, Kate sighed and trudged into her bedroom, shutting the door lightly behind her.

I wasn't trying to be a killjoy, really. I wanted her to go out and have a good time, I just didn't want her to invite me. Feeling the way I did, I probably would have found a way to make a fun time not-so-fun. "Why don't you call Lo or Eleanor to go out with you tonight?" I suggested. Lo was Kate's sister and Eleanor was the girl that Lo lived with, who Kate and I got to know (and like) over the past few years. They were more similar to Kate than to me, meaning they were a lot of fun. Not that I wasn't, I just had a different idea of fun than they did. Clubs and parties weren't really my scene. "I don't want to go outside today."

The only response I got was Kate goofily singing, "The sun is out, the sky is blue. It's beautiful, and so are you," through the bedroom door. This caused me to exhale loudly and climb out of my tangled bed sheets. Kate must have heard me approaching her location, because she ran to the door and poked her head out. "You can't come in yet," she winked before disappearing behind the door once again.

Kate had always been a particularly spontaneous person, and even after knowing her since fourth grade, I still wasn't one hundred percent comfortable with some of the ideas she came up with. I stopped trying to guess what she was scheming, I was never correct. Since she was very stubborn as well, I knew there was no way I was getting into that bedroom until she was ready for me, so I made my way back to bed to continue reading the heart-wrenching book I'd been working on for the past week.

John Green was an absolute genius. How he could come up with and write such a moving story from the perspective of a teenage girl while he was a middle aged man absolutely amazed me; it was a talent that I had envied ever since I had read Looking for Alaska. Ever since the character was introduced, I could not stop thinking about whether I would find my own Augustus Waters one day. Not in the sense that I was looking for an ex-basketball star with one point four legs and a deadly case of cancer, because I wasn't. It's just, the way he loved Hazel made me swoon. Swoon.

It was another twenty minutes (roughly) before Kate emerged from her bedroom, dragging an overstuffed suitcase behind her.

"Are you finally moving out?" I joked, receiving a light slap in the shoulder.

"Not quite," She started, plopping down onto the sofa and opening up her laptop. "But you might want to pack a suitcase, too."

The features on my face were filled with confusion. What was she getting at? I certainly wasn't going on a plane, if that's what she was intending. My fear of planes was so extreme that even thinking about them made me weak in the knees. It's not the height or the fact that the plane could crash that freaked me out, but the fact that I was putting my life in somebody else's hands. If I had to opportunity to fly the aircraft rather than being a passenger, then I would have absolutely no problem with it. But, alas, I cannot, so I made an effort to avoid planes as much as possible. "Where are we going?"

Kate must have sensed the nervousness in my voice, and she laughed. "Nowhere far, silly," She muttered, eyes glued to the screen. "We're just getting out of the city for a few days. I know you need it."

It was true. As much as I loved Boston, getting away would be nice. That way, I wouldn't be constantly reminded of stupid George Till every time I walked by the diner around the corner from the apartment, or whenever crowds rallied outside of the TD Bank Garden before every home game that the Bruins played. This city was filled with so many old memories featuring my very recent ex-boyfriend, and maybe leaving for a few days was just what I needed. "When are we leaving?"

"Whenever you're finished packing," Kate grinned before dialing her parents number. Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes lived in Chicago, but they had this cute little house along the beaches of Barnstable in Cape Cod. I'd been there a few times over the summers whenever I hung out with Kate, and even though the house was a pretty small, I still considered it a nice getaway from the busy urban streets of Boston, Massachusetts. Rising from the bed, I made my way to my bedroom and dug out the suitcase I had buried in the bottom of my closet, filling it with five or six outfits and some hodgepodge items and necessities.

In that moment, however, I wish I had known to pack for a lot more than just a few days.