Page 104 of Fate Fiction

When Evan had seen me he paused a bit and smiled, “lovely dress you have on there.”

I remembered how flushed I got at the comment at the time, how genuine he sounded when he said it. I’d assumed he was just being nice, that every other girl in this line received the same, and I carried that assumption with me for nearly a decade.

Maybe I was creating a false narrative for myself, but I wondered if there really was more to the compliment.

“I really thought I was going to bury myself with that secret,” I said with a stiff laugh. “But now that the fan fiction is out in the open what else do I have to lose, and I’d hate to keep any more secrets from you.”

Evan chuckled, unfortunately too loudly. “Please, please tell me you still have the photo. I have to see it.”

I grimaced. “You have to promise me that you won’t think I’m crazy, it was years ago I’ve matured a lot since.” I was swiping through my phone to find the photo, trying to remember if I’d posted it publicly for anyone to find.

“Oh my god,” I choked when I found it. It was so much more awkward than I’d remembered. The two of us were standing side by side, Evan’s hand placed on my shoulder. He looked much younger, as did I, and neither of us looked particularly comfortable. It was the sort of photo that from the outside was obvious was between two complete strangers.

A stark contrast to the selfies we took on top of the mountain. I imagined explaining those to the girl in the photo.

Evan pulled my phone out of my hands and turned it around. “Oh my god is right, I looked like a loser then.”

“You look like a loser?” I scoffed. “I’m wearing a regal gown, in public, by choice. To take a photo with you I paid seventy five dollars for, no less.”

“Should I charge you a hundred and fifty then for the two we took on the mountain?” I subtly flipped him off from behind my glass. “Also, look at me, I look like I don’t know what to do with my hands. It’s like my first day on earth or something.” He zoomed in and out of the photo. “Honestly, you look pretty great in that dress, I will say.”

I thought to ask if he remembered what he said, if he really meant it then, but what did it matter now? Evan McLeod had seen more of me than I ever could have fathomed then.

“It’s so embarrassing,” I muttered. A hand rested on my arm. I still wasn’t looking at him.

“It’s not really that bad, I find it amusing and cute, in a way. If it’s any consolation, I don’t remember meeting you. I really only remember the weird or unsettling ones.”

“Still I feel it’s necessary to reiterate that the fandom part of me is dead. Like six feet under, will never come out, dead,” I glanced up and our eyes met. A soft smile on Evan’s face, his eyes intently focused on me.

“Well, I don’t really care how you feel about Sir Erwyn. I do care, though, how you feel about me.”

I’d spent the better part of the summer trying to forget he even existed, and then the last two weeks trying to prepare for this ultimate clash. Now—as he sat before me—he seemed to want something from me and I couldn’t unravel what it was.

He didn’t want things to go back to how they were before, did he?

My silence and blank stare was long enough to make Evan backtrack, “actually, don’t answer that.” He fiddled with his straw wrapper again.

I nodded. “We should get going,” I said.

My bumbling awkwardness tonight was hardly cinematic, no matter how badly I’d tried to force it into a glossy, well-lit production. I’m embarrassingly human right now, and even more embarrassingly flustered by his reemergence in my life.

There were moments during dinner I couldn’t bear to look at him. When he batted my hand away from the check after the server dropped it off or when he ate his greasy pile of nachos with a baffling politeness.

We left the restaurant in silence, the last thing he said was hovering over us.

I felt everything about him. Sadness. Frustration. Hurt. Comfort. Hope.

But it wasn’t the makings of anything real. You can’t fall in love with someone in fragments.

Maybe there’s an alternative universe where I’m watching myself live through and that Dani pulls me away to fix the timeline. There’s no plan or guidebook and that terrifies me. Sure, standing under a street lamp in Boston after a romantic confession is as cinematic as it gets, but this was beyond my scope of expertise.

Evan was looking at me, furrowing his brow in the way he does when he’s planning what to say. The right words escaped me because truly, logically, there was no reason why I shouldn’t take a chance with him right now.

Nick had been the safe choice and look where that got me. Evan is as risky as it gets.

And I knew I had to choose the safe route. I let fear collapse me into a small rage-laden ball of ice that doesn’t feel, and certainly doesn’t act on that feeling. Whatever I did, whoever I had become at camp no longer exists.

As much as those lingering embers from months ago were tamped down, the second I saw him tonight I was star struck all over again. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the connection we had or because of who he was.