Destroying Fate

Angela knew he was coming, she heard the conversations and that they would be here in about a week. She needed to find him, to make him find her. Based off what she heard she knew that he would be in a city about an hour away from hers; but that didn’t discourage her at all. She could drive, and so could he.

Joel on the other hand was not as excited about this trip as everyone else was, he didn’t really enjoy long car rides and listening to his parents bicker at each other. Joel’s parents unlike Angela are not destined soulmates, they met through a mutual friend at a party and hit it off at the time, but did not bear the same mark. They fell in love and got approval by the society to stay together and have their marks changed to identify each other, as long as they promised to try and stick together no matter what happened. It worked out for the most part except on the odd occasion during long car rides where they never agreed with each other about anything.

“I told you to turn left, and what do you do? You turn right!” Groaned Joel’s mother sighing as his father turned a different way down the highway towards his grandparents.

“Well guess what, right is faster.” He said slamming on the breaks as a car decided to pull out in front of them unexpectedly.
Angela saw this of course and almost dropped the carton of milk she was holding to make her cereal that morning. He needed to stop almost getting himself killed if she was going to meet him soon.

“Well maybe if you turned left that wouldn’t have happened.” His mother snickered slumping in her seat; her heart beating fast from the rush of it all.

Joel looked out the window and took in a deep sigh; he knew this was going to be a very long and annoying trip. He also was having troubles connected to Angela the past few days; he couldn’t read her thoughts or see her dreams. It was all a blur and led him to wonder what was going on, all he wanted was to hear her voice again.

A few days later Angela left a note for her mother on the kitchen counter, saying she was headed to her best friend Eryn’s for a few hours to study for a big biology exam she had coming up. She was truly headed an hour out of her town in hopes of catching Joel on his trip. She had planned to leave clues and hints for him to find her, she decided to make a game out of the whole thing; maybe he’d like her more if she made him have a little fun.

He had finally arrived at his grandparents’ house, after days of gross hotel rooms and bickering parents it was great to finally have some time alone; sitting at the end of a dock he decided to take a walk through the city to explore and of course think about Angela. Joel still had no luck with attempting to hear anything from her; it was like she learned to shut him out. Joel paced the streets of this small town, and approached a small café and ordered a coffee and sat by a window. As he sat there he noticed some letters carved on a bench right outside the Café. In a rage of curiosity, he finished what was left of the bitter coffee despite the burning sensation it left afterwards to figure out what it had said.

‘Find me, this will be fun. The winner gets to kiss the loser!’ He almost felt a little disturbed until he noticed the small symbol carved into the side of it, his heart beat inside his chest and he realized what it was. His arm immediately went up to his shoulder and lifted back the sleeve of his blue baseball shirt; his soulmate was trying to reach him and make a game out of it.

Two can play at that game, Joel thought to himself knowing that this boring trip had just gotten a lot more interesting.

Angela lied in her bed that night, wondering if Joel had found her mark. Ever since she had left it she too was unable to see or hear anything from him; and thought maybe it was because he had grown closer. This made things a little bit more difficult when it came to leaving hints, but either way Angela knew she had to keep at and he would eventually find her; she had planned to go back into town the next day to see if he had responded to anything she left or if he had left anything.

After listening to a boring story about the lake his grandfather had told for the 6th or 7th time since he had been there; Joel was finally able to escape and head out back to the town. He had left a small clue by a park bench; some roses with black dots on them using a sharpie. That would definitely let her know that he was onto her, and also left a little note with a silly poem in its place.

‘Hey guess what, roses are red; the mark is black. I’ll find you eventually, just don’t have a heart attack.’

Angela giggled when she found it; she had got a small glimpse of him being there that morning that was how she discovered where he had left the hint. She also felt a small sense of someone watching her on the side, someone sinister.

The feeling was shook off when she had left her hint in that same park, a heart in the sand with her name and another silly poem.

‘Maybe we have flames; maybe there’s no shame. Hey darling can I get your name?’ She turned and headed back into town; before her mother had realized she had left again.

It was Joel’s turn to leave his clue, as fun as this was becoming he was eager to meet whoever was leaving these clues and he had finally learned her name; Angela. He felt as if the name rolled off his tongue and made his heart beat like crazy. He decided to leave his clue on the side of a restaurant his parents had shown him the day before.

‘If you want my name, you gotta play; I’ll be here, meet me at 8?’ As he left the note he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned around to see a tall man, he had a strange black hat and wore a suit.

“I know what you’re doing, and you both need to stop.” Is all that was said before he slid off into the distance; Joel thought nothing of it and just thought the man was talking to the wrong person accidentally.

Angela got a glimpse of the note that Joel had left on the side of the restaurant; and realized that she wasn’t ready to meet him quite yet; she was too nervous; but if she didn’t meet him now when would she meet him? Probably never.

It was almost 7 by the time Angela had left her house; she didn’t want to be early to avoid wandering around looking stupid waiting for someone who may not even show. She wasn’t even sure who she was looking for; she had only finally learned his name. She pulled up into the parking lot and took in a deep breath; and slowly got out of the car.

Joel arrived at almost the same time, only a few minutes before and asked the hostess for a table for two when he arrived at the restaurant. He sat at the back holding his breath wondering if she would even show, just as he grew scared that this was all just a joke he saw a beautiful girl about his age with long brown hair wearing a blue flower print dress walk in and look around.

Angela’s vision immediately began to get blurry and before she knew it she was looking at herself from the other side of the room; Joel stood up and realized.

That was her.