Page 106 of Something Like Fate

“You have no idea how similar you are, even without the vision.”

“Really?”

He shuts his eyes and lets out a long sigh before pulling over to the side of the road. “Did you know your mom and I met at a work meeting?” he asks, putting the car in Park.

“Yeah, you told me that.” I take a deep inhale over the squeak and drag of the windshield wipers, frankly shocked he’s brought her up.

“Well, I never I told you that it wasn’t a meet-cute. It was more ... a meet-ugly,” he says. I’m afraid to move an inch for fear he’ll stop talking. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t nice to her. She disagreed with me on the interpretation of evidence on a high-profile case. I was so embarrassed because she pointed it out in front of our boss. I didn’t take it well. I’d already been on the case for over a year, and she was brand new. So I thought, what could she possibly know that I don’t?”

“Sounds like male fragility to me,” I point out with a wry smile.

“You’re probably right. I realized later that she had a point. I needed a fresh perspective like hers. By the time I apologized, she’d already made up her mind about me. It took weeks of groveling for her to forgive me.

“We slowly started talking, and then we hung out at a work party—bowling, of all things. That’s when I really fell for her. She was such a romantic, like you. So interested in people, in new places, in doing things she’d never done before, like playing bocce or learning new games—or traveling. One day, I asked her on a date and she refused, which shocked me because we’d been getting along so well and I thought she liked me too. I didn’t know if I’d misread things between us, so I asked her why. She said she wished she could, but it wouldn’t workfor reasons she couldn’t explain. For weeks, that went on. Eventually, I convinced her to go out with me. She tried to scare me off by telling me she was a psychic. I think she assumed I’d run for the hills, having such a scientific outlook on the world.”

“So the psychic thing didn’t scare you off?”

He shakes his head. “I thought it was strange at first, I’ll give you that. But it actually made me love her more. I liked that she didn’t have this narrow view of the world like a lot of our colleagues. Things weren’t completely black and white, with logical, scientific explanations. In fact, it’s dangerous to think you know everything, that you can logic out every situation. There are things in this world that don’t always have an explanation. The Zhao women have proven that over and over. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. Your mom actually predicted my dad’s heart attack a day before it happened.

“We fell in love—hard. But one day, I found her in tears after work. She told me the truth, about her family’s abilities. About how she was destined for one specific soulmate. And that it wasn’t me.”

My world tilts. “Wait, what?” I ask, bracing myself against the window.

Dad nods his head, confirming that I heard correctly.

His meaning settles, heavy in my core. “Her soulmate wasn’tyou?” I ask, barely above a whisper.

His mouth presses closed before opening again. “No.”

I draw my head back. “What do you mean? But what about her vision? The glasses? The hearts?”

“She’d had a vision. And it had nothing to do with me. At all,” he clarifies.

“I’m so confused. The vision Mei and Ellen told me about. It wasn’t true?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and turns to me. “Here’s the thing. Your mother’s family never would have approved of us if they knew she was going against her vision. So we made it up. And she swore me to secrecy.”

“Even Mei and Ellen don’t know? To this day?”

“No.”

What the hell?I crack open the passenger door, in desperate need of fresh air.

I’ve lived my entire life thinking my parents were soulmates—that I was some product of fate—only to find out it was all a lie.

“So that’s why you were so cagey with me,” I conclude. Snippets of conversation come flooding back, of asking questions about Mom’s vision, Dad evading and changing the subject. Dad was always a bit blasé about the soulmate idea in general, but I just thought it was because there was part of him that didn’t believe in it.

“Yes,” he admits, tone heavy. “She made me promise not to tell anyone until you were older. I wanted to tell you for so long, but I never knew if it was the right time. And then you were so excited when you had your vision, I didn’t have the heart to tell you.”

My eyes widen. “So that means ... you aren’t technically her soulmate.”

“Not according to the vision—”

“Did she ever meet the person in the vision?”

“No. Not that I know of. She said she didn’t have to, that I was who she was meant to be with.”

I rake my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what to say ... You’re not Mom’s soulmate,” I keep repeating.

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