Page 1 of Something Like Fate

Prologue

For generations, the women in my family have foreseen their true loves.

That probably sounds bizarre and frankly a tad creepy, but let me explain: I come from a long line of talented Chinese fortune tellers on my mom’s side. After coming to America in the early 1900s, the Zhao women began blending ancient methods with Western psychic practices to appeal to more customers. And while Westernizing was hotly contested by my great-aunt, who rightfully feared diluting tradition, a unique power developed—the ability to foresee our soulmates (before ever meeting them).

You might be wondering how this actually works in practice. Can we cross paths on any given gum-pocked street corner and justknow? Could we identify them among thousands of sweaty, inebriated souls at a music festival? Like most things in this life, it’s complicated. In fact, it works differently for everyone.

Take my late grandmother. At only ten years old, the face of my grandfather, a total stranger, came to her mid–math test. His features, particularly his single left dimple, were so clear, it was as though he was standing right in front of her. Personally, I wouldn’t take kindly to some stranger’s face haunting me at random. But his lopsided smile blanketed her with comfort, like the first ray of sunlight kissing your skin after a harsh northern winter.

My grandfather’s face imprinted in her memory so vividly, she instantly recognized him a decade later—in an elevator, of all places. The moment they made eye contact, she emitted a croak reminiscent of an ailing seagull and collapsed face-first into his chest. My grandfather never missed an opportunity to say he “swept her off her feet.” They married three months later and the rest is history.

The generations are filled with butterfly-inducing, squeal-into-your-pillow, swoon-worthy love stories that could make even the mushiest romantics skeptical enough to question their authenticity. And it doesn’t stop there. In addition to predicting one’s soulmate, my relatives have used their abilities to help countless people find themselves, giving them hope, comfort, and direction.

Now, you might be wondering about me. How did I find The One? My Forever? I’d love to dazzle you with a heart-stopping fairy tale woven with sunshine, rainbows, and glittery unicorns. But it would be bullshit.

I haven’t foreseen My True Love. I haven’t foreseen anything at all, for that matter. Because I’m me, Lo Zhao-Jensen—the extraordinarily ordinary. The only Zhao woman in recorded history with zero—and I meanZero—psychic abilities whatsoever.

Until now.

1

I’m on the cusp of hooking up with Mark B. when it overcomes me, fast and furious.

It’s more vivid than a recent memory. Crisp and clear as a movie on Dad’s prized ultrahigh-def TV. I see an unrecognizable cityscape, made up of slippery-looking glass skyscrapers extending to a cotton candy–blue sky. My nose is engulfed with a rich espresso-like scent that threatens to clear my airways. Barbs of heat prick my neck, as though I’m getting the brunt of a high-noon sun and not sitting in a darkened basement at Pi Kappa Alpha’s end-of-finals party. The last big bash before summer. A cluster of red cartoon hearts drifts over the skyline like hot-air balloons expanding fast, getting larger and larger until—

“Lo?” Mark B.’s sour beer breath snaps me back to reality, and his glistening wet lips come into sharp focus. They’re hovering dangerously close to mine, and a surge of dread rockets down my spine.

“Sorry, I, uh, I thought I saw ...”

“You good? You kinda went all bug-eyed. Looked like you were having an allergic reaction or something,” he says with his signature bluntness.

“How attractive of me.” A catatonic state and the flush of anaphylactic shock is the ultimate recipe for seduction, didn’t you know?

I expect him to brush off my self-deprecation, like he usually does. Maybe humor me with a little white lie about how I’m kind of “adorable” or “endearing.” But he doesn’t say anything at all. Not a thing.And while this moment will probably haunt my soul for millennia, there are more pressing matters. Like, what the hell did I just see?

Mark B. senses the mood shift, the hard angles of his bewildered expression glowing orange from the lava lamp on the side table.

I consider explaining, but the words don’t come. There is no way to explain all ofthatwithout him thinking I’m a total loon. Besides, what even was “that”? A figment of my alcohol-induced imagination? Can’t be. I only had two red Solo cups’ worth of beer.

Could it be a hallucination from stuffing myself like a sausage into this two-sizes-too-small orange suede skirt? Possibly.

A bizarrely vivid daydream? Marginally more likely. Then again, I’ve never had daydreams thrust upon me like a chemistry lab partner I didn’t choose.

I recall something my grandmother used to say: that visions strike at the most inconvenient times, like a school test in her case, or while on the toilet, like my aunt Mei. Could it really be a vision? I stomp down the hope and kick some dirt over it for good measure. I won’t venture down that tunnel. I did not inherit the Zhao abilities. I’ve already begrudgingly made peace with being the talentless outcast in my family and a smidge below average at, well, everything.

Mark B. clears his throat and gestures at the space between us. “Do you actually wanna hook up or no? Because lately you always seem to have some sort of issue,” he says, making air quotes aroundissue, as though it’s intentional on my part.

Trust, I wish it were. The past multiple times we’ve hung out, I’ve had some ... complications, to say the least. One time, I fell asleep ten minutes into our movie and snored like a seventy-year-old man with sleep apnea. He recorded me to prove it. The time after, I tried to make up for it by zealously throwing myself on top of him without notice, only to pull a muscle in my inner thigh and keel over in slow motion. And now this.

“Do you want to hook up?” he repeats impatiently over the pulse of the bass and chanting upstairs. The beer pong tournament is in full swing.

I bite my lip. “Um ...” Do I? That’s the million-dollar question. Technically, yes. I didn’t wear a matching bra-and-undies set for nothing. It’s not like this would be our first hookup, and it’s not that I don’t enjoy hookups in general. I do, in the moment. But when it’s finished and he rolls over with a single grunt, I can’t help but feel a swell of disappointment. Is this how it’s supposed to be? Hollow? Anticlimactic? Would it be different with someone I really, really like?

Not that I don’t like Mark B.

I liked him instantly when we met at, you guessed it, a frat party. It was an ABC-themed party (anything but clothes) before the holidays. I was standing in the kitchen, trying to cut my duct-tape dress off with right-handed scissors so I could actually sit or pee comfortably. He sauntered over in a toga fashioned out of a wiener dog–print bedsheet and offered to help cut me out of it “in a nonsexual way.”

He had one of those ultraconfident gaits, a swagger about him, always in command, which in hindsight was a massive part of his allure (and the wiener-dog sheets, of course). I was stunned he was even paying attention to me with his bootleg Hemsworth-brother looks.

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