Page 3 of Ruled By Fate

“I can’t wait to see you, girl. Call me the second you get into town!”

Brie clicked on the next message.

“Hi, Brie. It’s your dad.”

She almost dropped the picture she’d taken off the wall.

“I was hoping… I was just wondering if you could stop by. You know, on your way out of town. We… I haven’t… Well, just come on by if you can.”

She looked down at the picture in her hand. It was one of the few she’d taken from her dad’s house when she’d moved out, and the image had long since been seared into her mind. It was the simplicity that captured her most. The same photograph could have been hanging in a thousand other happy homes, and this one just happened to belong to her. It was a family portrait—one of their very first. Her mother and father were holding their newborn baby, gazing adoringly at the tiny bundle as she reached up a hand to them in return.

She loved this photograph. It was a perfect moment, frozen in time. Her throat grew thick with emotion. She wrapped it carefully in several scarves and sweatshirts and placed it at the top of a box, determined that it would not break in transit. Then she decided to save the rest of the packing for later and headed for the bath.

One final bath. I don’t even know if the new place has a tub.

She turned on the faucet and waited for the water to warm up, considering her reflection in the mirror. It was no wonder it was so hard for her father. She’d always been the spitting image of her mom. They shared the same long, chestnut hair, the same wide-set green eyes, and the same mouth, slightly upturned at the corners, as though always on the edge of laughing. She’d even inherited her mother’s dancer figure, though none of her inherent grace.

She let out a quiet sigh, her father’s voicemail still ringing in her ears. Considering the level of complexity and nuance her therapist had delighted in heaping on every situation, the way Brie saw it, the problem was rather simple: After the accident, she’d gotten help. Her dad hadn’t.

In the quaking aftermath, as she had wrestled with the flickering memories of angels and death, her father sank into a kind of unremarkable depression that left him wandering around the house with a bottle permanently affixed to his hand. For a long time, she’d resented him. Bitterly. She was the one who’d been in the car. She was the one who’d had half a windshield pulled from her chest. She was the one who’d been sentenced to weekly therapy sessions in the years that followed. But as time progressed and the relationship deteriorated, she’d come to realize an important lesson: it was impossible to resent a person so truly, incurably sad.

She looked after him instead, watching as he buried himself in work and neglected everything else. She secretly restocked the refrigerator and made deals with the electric company to have his bills forwarded to her new address. She took the slow route through nursing school so she could care for him, watching Sherry graduate ahead of her and move out to Virginia, escaping the little Atlanta suburb they’d been so anxious to leave since they were children. Anger was replaced with acceptance, even if that acceptance slowly chipped away at her heart.

She understood when he didn’t show up at her graduation. She understood when he forgot appointments and birthdays. She understood when he couldn’t teach her how to drive. He was less understanding when Sherry taught her instead, and they plowed into her neighbor’s mailbox. But understanding didn’t make it any easier.

The truth was, she missed her father desperately, and she’d give him that precious photograph in a second if it meant he’d never touch another bottle of vodka again.

Her bath was ready.

She added a few drops of lavender oil and slipped beneath the water, letting it quiet her mind and soothe her muscles, still aching from her run. This was the one good thing about the apartment. Though it was lacking in other areas, like basic insulation and structural support, it had come with an improbably-sized bathtub. She’d taken one look and leased it on the spot.

She relaxed back into the tub, gazing up at the crack in the ceiling that looked like Saturn. She’d spent many nights just like this, letting her mind wander as her eyes focused on that one inconsequential thing. It had become a kind of solace. The little apartment had afforded her a bit of space from her father without leaving the town entirely. It had given her just enough room to stay sane — just enough independence to feel like she wasn’t wholly, irrevocably stuck.

She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the water. She wondered if she’d miss it. She wondered if she’d ever find herself wanting to move back.

“You’ve got to work those buns if you want to lose them!”

The trance broke, and her eyes drifted slowly upward to where her neighbor had started his nightly routine of calisthenics and self-loathing. She rolled her eyes and slipped under the water. The instant she submerged, the world vanished, and the noise quieted to a gentle hum. A sense of nostalgia washed over her as she opened her eyes beneath the warm water. There had been many nights when she’d sat just like this, counting the seconds to see how long she could stay under, sometimes wondering what would happen if she decided not to surface.

Those were the earliest days. Things are different now.

It was good that she was leaving. How long had she cocooned herself in this place — this apartment, this town — trapped in some stagnant shrine to the past? Most people would have packed up and moved away years ago. But she’d only lost one parent. She still had a tether.

Come on, you know that’s not the only reason.

The water rippled around her fingers as if on cue, and her pendant drifted up in front of her eyes. It shimmered in the dim light, delicate filigree metal encasing a strangely beautiful opaline stone, hovering in perfect stillness beneath little waves.

No, it wasn’t the only reason. And it wasn’t the only tether. She wasn’t just leaving the town. She was leaving all of it. The road they’d been driving, the cemetery she hated, the falls where she secretly jogged almost every morning to offer her mother a bashful hello. She’d be leaving the story — the idea that everything that happened was real.

I used to call it a memory. When did I start calling it a story?

With a little frown, she reached out in front of her, touching the tips of her fingers to the glinting pendant. How could she leave when she couldn’t even take off the necklace? She could picture it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. The way the angel had reached out his hand to touch the pendant before pulling back and telling her, “Don’t ever take it off.” A surge of anger swept through her. How could she pack up the car when she was still bound to the promise of an angel who didn’t really exist?

Her jaw clenched in determination, and without stopping to think about what she was doing, she reached behind her neck and unclasped the delicate chain. Rather than sinking, the pendant floated strangely away from her, hovering just out of reach.

Suddenly, a crack like thunder snapped across the room, whipping through the air and sucking the color out of everything. She sat up with a jolt. At least she tried, but she couldn’t break through the surface of the water. Bewildered, she put one, then two palms to the surface and encountered a barrier as hard and clear as glass. She made a fist with one hand and banged against it, but it wouldn’t budge, and the sound of her struggle merely echoed back around her.

What the hell?

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