Page 4 of Fated

“Yep!” I lifted my head, grinning at her.

Her smile mirrored mine. “I worked my last shift tonight, too. God, I can’t wait to have two full weeks off.” She drummed her fingers on her lap. “I thought we could kick things off tomorrow by hitting the bookstore and picking up a few new books for our trip. Then we could grab lunch across the street at that little café you love.”

My eyes lit up. “That sounds amazing.”

Mom let out a long yawn. “Wanna watch one more episode with me before bed?”

“Of course.”

I smiled, handing her my empty plate, which clinked as she set it down on the table beside her. She reached for something else from the tabletop, and I squealed as she handed me a bag of our favorite chocolate and caramel popcorn.

It was the popcorn they only sold at a store an hour from here.

She pressed play on the forty-five-minute episode, and we shared the popcorn as we laughed at the awkward contestants on the dating show.

About halfway in, it struck me that it was strange to be the only one still laughing. It wasn’t until handing Mom the bag of popcorn that I realized she’d fallen asleep.

I nudged her gently. “Mom, go get in bed.”

Her head jerked up, eyes fluttering open briefly before closing again. “Why?” she mumbled.

“Because you fell asleep.” I chuckled.

“I did not fall asleep—I have been watching the entire time,” she weakly protested.

For some reason I couldn’t explain, Mom and I had this thing where we could never admit if one of us had fallen asleep while watching TV together.

I looked at her and rolled my eyes. “The episode’s over. Go to bed.”

She glanced at the dark screen.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“It’s fine, Mom. You’re exhausted and we have the next twoweeks to hang out anyway.” I stretched my arms out in front of me before standing, offering her my hand.

She grabbed it and stood, nearly colliding with the wall on her way to her bedroom. “I love you, Rey,” she yelled back.

“I love you too, Mom.” Her door shut softly.

I took my plate and the popcorn to the kitchen and ran a load of dishes before heading to my own room.

***

Grabbing my phone, I squinted at the brightly lit screen through tired eyes.Shit.It was 2 a.m. and I had been playing Conquest for hours.

After every round, I promised myself,just one more game.But I won every match, and having absolutely zero self-control, I couldn’t ever resist diving into the next round.

Conquest was a super popular video game that had taken off during my freshman year of high school. All the guys at school had been obsessed with it, an intense multiplayer battle game where groups of players competed in an assortment of arenas until only one player remained. My best friends, Lucy and Tyson, blonde-haired and blue-eyed twins, had begged me to join our district as an anonymous player.

Thanks to exceptional hand-eye coordination, I held the high score on nearly every game at Bernie’s, the local arcade-bar in our small town. The three of us spent every spare moment there.

After weeks of them pestering me, I’d finally given in to the twins and joined the game under the randomly generated name, Joyfulsquid. In a matter of weeks, that player became a legend at school, dominating the leaderboards in every category.

So, the whole school wanted to know: who was Joyfulsquid?

The question quickly became the school’s greatest mystery.No one would ever have guessed it was the awkward shy girl, the one who mostly kept to herself.

After yawning for the third time in the last few minutes, I shut down the game and headed to bed. Falling backward into the softness of my mattress, a jolt of excitement shot through me. In only five days’ time, I would be turning twenty-one, and Mom was taking me to Linden Beach, our first time ever seeing the ocean. Money had always been tight growing up, so this vacation would be more than just a getaway for us both; it was a dream for which we’d been saving, a trip we’d been planning for years. I tossed and turned in bed for what felt like an eternity, thoughts of sand and crashing waves filling my mind until eventually, sleep came to claim me.

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