Page 17 of Something Like Fate

“Also, if you meet The One, you’ll have the room to yourself,” she says suggestively when I don’t respond.

“Bianca.” Realistically, I’d forgo privacy in favor of moral support when meeting my soulmate. But I don’t tell her that. I don’t want her to feel worse than she already does.

“You’ve always said you wanted to do a solo trip. And you make friends wherever you go. I’ve heard it’s super easy to meet other travelers in hostels.” She’s not wrong. Like Bianca, I’ve never had an issue striking up a conversation with strangers, and I do have an adventurous streak.

Still, the prospect of traveling solo as a young woman is a little jarring. Dad’s influence is rubbing off on me after all.

“Maybe your dad would go with you,” she suggests.

I emit a laugh. It’s the only thing I can do in place of crying. “Can you imagine him hovering over my shoulder when I meet The One? He’d be the ultimate cockblock. No thank you.”

“Oh, come on. Eric could use some sun. He’s pastier than a malnourished Victorian child.”

“Definitely not.” It isn’t that I don’t want to travel with Dad, but after living at home all year, this trip was supposed to mark my transition into adulthood, into independence. It was supposed to be Bianca and me, no curfew, no one breathing down our necks as we stumble to our hostels late at night after too much cheap wine. Then again, who else my age would have the money or time to impulsively drop everything and backpack around Italy with me for a month? “Maybe I could ask one of my aunts. Well, I guess not Ellen. She’s too pregnant.”

“What about Mei? She’s always up for an adventure.”

“So long as it’s business class,” I say with a snort. “I think her backpacking days are over. She also refuses to take time off from work. Last year they forced her to take two weeks of vacation, so she flew to a psychic convention in Vegas, redesigned her entire condo, and wrote twenty thousand words of a book about melding Eastern and Western psychic practices.”

And that’s when it comes to me.

I know just the person in need of a vacation.

“What is all this?” Teller asks, hands on hips over his barista apron.

He’s taken aback by my presence, which is fair, because I stormed into the coffee shop without notice dressed in random yellow items of clothing I cobbled together: a yellow party hat with a floppy pom-pom, my childhood yellow life jacket that is way too tight around the chest, a yellow cape from my drama club days, and yellow leggings I bought for an eighties party on campus that make me look like Big Bird’s deranged sister.

When a table of athleisure-clad women sipping iced coffees spin around to stare, I immediately regret making such a dramatic entrance.

I thought there was a possibility I might embarrass the shit out of him, but he doesn’t seem to notice anyone else. His eyes are on me only.That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about Teller. As different as we are, he’s never once asked me to change or tone it down.

A surprise to us both, somewhere between selling tickets, preparing food and drink orders, stocking supplies, and cleaning that first summer, we just clicked. We worked most shifts together since Teller was always on the schedule. He worked as much as he could, always offering to take shifts for Paula, a single mom of twins who often needed time off.

We made the perfect team, making up for each other’s shortcomings. Where he dreaded making small talk with customers, I’d shuffle impatiently, waiting for the end of the movie so I could ask them what they thought. And where I would have preferred to douse myself in boiling popcorn butter than clean, Teller found peace in the routine of mopping and stocking and organizing supplies.

Most of our downtime consisted of me forcing him to watch bits of rom-coms we were screening, scrolling through photos of pets for adoption, and playing card games Teller learned from his grandma: War, Crazy Eights, Slapjack, Go Fish, and Golf. He nearly always won.

One night he offered me a ride home from work, and then again the next night. And then every night for the rest of the summer. This tradition continued on even when school started. He’d pick me up on those dewy fall mornings and drop me off at the end of the day—until I started dating a guy named Tim Yates, a football bro. You know the type. Walks around with his chest puffed out, sits backward in chairs, and orders the XXX spicy wings just to prove a point. Anyway, he was weirdly paranoid that Teller wanted to hook up with me (he did not) and insisted on driving me instead. We broke up after a couple months, and of course, my routine with Teller resumed.

“Lo? What’s with the ... outfit?” he asks over the hiss and whirr of all the fancy coffee machinery. “You look like sunshine on legs.”

“It’s on brand with ... your cheer-up kit!Ta-da,” I announce in my best game-show-host voice, setting a gigantic basket wrapped in yellowtulle on the counter. I hate seeing him all sad and mopey, so I had to go to extraordinary lengths to cheer him up.

He pretends to be chill as he wipes his hands on a cloth and tosses it over his shoulder. “A cheer-up kit? You really didn’t have to do this,” he says, though I don’t miss the upward turn of his lips when he pulls out the first item—a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints, his absolute favorite because they make his mouth feel clean. “Where’d you get these? They’re out of season.”

I flash a coy smile. “I have my ways.” Byways, I mean I badgered Jayde, our eight-year-old neighbor, for a box from her stash in exchange for a promise to bake her a funfetti cake when I get back from Italy.

Teller extracts the next gift, a pack of disinfectant wipes with a little note that readsFor a clean slate. “Needed more of these for my car,” he murmurs approvingly.

The next item is Quinton, a stuffed lemur he won for me in eleventh grade at the fall fair. I forced him to go; he doesn’t trust the structural integrity of carnival rides. “You don’t want to keep him?” he asks.

“You need him more than me,” I say, motioning for him to pull out the next item. It’s a pair of homemade coupons with offers toEgg Sophie’s apartmentandKey her car(valid until September 1st).

“Right,” he says with a snort, moving on to a tiny flip calendar called Just Ponies.

“I have a feeling you’ll love June’s pony,” I inform him.

He flips to June, where a blond pony gallops through a sunlit field, tutu flouncing in the breeze. A childlike grin spreads across Teller’s face, lighting him up from the inside out. Not a lot makes Teller smile, and this right here is the first genuine smile I’ve seen from him in ages. Just seeing him happy gives me an instant high.

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