I swallow hard.
“I’m ready to ask my second question,” I tell him. He raises an eyebrow.
“Already? Is it about my balls?”
I flush and shake my head.
“What did you mean before?” I ask him slowly, not lowering my gaze. “Why exactly do you think this is kismet?”
His eyes crinkle up a little bit as he smiles yet again. And yet again, his grin is thoroughly amused. A real smile, not a fake one like I’m accustomed to around my house.
“It’s kismet because you seem like someone I might like to know. Is that odd?”
No, because I want to know you, too.
“Maybe,” I say instead. “Is it odd that I feel like I already know you somehow?”
Because I do. There’s something so familiar about his eyes, so dark, so bottomless.
Dare raises an eyebrow. “Maybe I have that kind of face.”
I choke back a snort. Hardly.
He stares at me. “Regardless, kismet always prevails.”
I shake my head and smile. A real smile. “The jury is still out on that one.”
Dare takes a last drink of coffee, his gaze still frozen to mine, before he thunks his cup down on the table and stands up.
“Well, let me know what the jury decides. If we don’t get going, we’ll be late for our grief therapy.”
And then he walks away.
I’m so dazed by his abrupt departure that it takes me a second to realize something because kismet always prevails and I’m someone he might like to know.
He took my dad’s phone number with him.
“Cal? You ready?”
Finn’s voice breaks my concentration, and with it, the moment. I glance up at my brother, almost in confusion, to find that he’s standing up, waiting for me. It’s time to go. I scramble to get up, feeling for all the world like I’m rattled, but don’t know why. It’s this moment, it’s this place, it’s…the same.
“Do you feel like you’ve been here before?” I ask Finn in bewilderment as we walk through the doors of the Sunshine Room. He glances at me and grimaces.
“Yeah. Every week since Mom died.”
That’s not what I meant and he knows it. The sense of déjà vu is strong, almost overwhelming, and I feel like I almost know what will happen next.
But I don’t.
Because Dare DuBray is across the room and his smile is brilliant and new.
When our eyes connect and the sparks fly and the air sizzles between us, he holds up my father’s phone number and winks.
Warmth rushes through me because
Kismet always prevails.
The jury has decided.
I feel it in my bones.
Author’s Note
I know what you’re wondering.
Was it real, or not real?
Was Calla crazy, or not?
Well, dear reader, let me ask you….
What do you think?
That’s the beauty of stories. Sometimes, the ending resides in you. If you don’t like an ending, choose another.
I’ve always been a person who believes things happen that we can’t understand, that the energy we put into the world comes back to us. There are lots of different cultures, including the Romani, who believe the same.
Is it possible to be cursed, to re-live time, to change it? Do ghosts exist? Is there a reason for déjà vu?
I have no idea.
But I’m open-minded enough to think that anything is possible.
And because of that, to me, Calla’s story was real. Her ending was real, and she saved Finn, and she’ll live happily-ever-after with Dare. Because I love a good Happily-Ever-After story. Calla managed to change time and prevent the curse.
But if you don’t like to think about mysticism, or supernatural elements, or things we can’t explain, Then you can choose to believe that Calla was crazy all along and none of this happened, and that she and Dare met and fell in love in a psych ward.
It’s entirely up to you.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this story.
I know it was a twisted journey, where the end was the beginning and the beginning was the end. I know that, and I did it on purpose.