Felix

Fate is a fickle thing.

Once is a chance, twice is a coincidence but anything after that is fate. My mother always taught me that fate and destiny are different things. She said that fate can be controlled, it can be changed. Destiny is the only thing we don’t have the power to manipulate. I always wondered what she meant about destiny. I was six when she first told me. I think about it almost every day.

The sun is shining for once. It’s a nice day to be out in the park. You can hear the music of a passing ice cream truck. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I would beg my mother for a popsicle. She would always say no and I would get hit after we got home. Then on some days when the stars aligned, she would buy me one. These would be the best days of my life.

The jingle of the ice cream truck gets louder and the only person in my life that matters runs up to me. She asks, “Can I get ice cream? Can I get an Ice cream.” She lights up my world and I take my nine-year-old niece’s hand to get her the ice cream I would rarely get.

We’re out here almost every week. It’s her favorite place in the world where she can play with her friends. I just enjoy sitting on the bench and watching the world speed by. It’s only here where I can enjoy the simplicity of it all. There’s no work, no hurry, no need to get paid. There’s no one to talk to, no drama to follow and no one to worry about. It’s just my niece and I enjoying the moment together.

Helen’s favorite is the Spongebob popsicle. I like the red white and blue rocketship but Helen’s just a kid so what can you do? She follows me back to the bench because she knows better than to play and eat.

“Mom says that we’re moving away,” Helen talks.

“Hmm, yeah. She told me. Do you know where?”

“Chicago. She says it’s nice there, where I like it here.”

“Do you know why?”

“Work,” she says a bit moody. Of course, she doesn’t want to move. If I was her I wouldn’t move either.

Helen finishes her popsicle before I do and the jiggle finally starts to fade away. She gets up runs over to the playground to rejoin her friends who are playing a game of tag. I look back over to fate. I wonder if there is a difference between fate or destiny.

Fate, she hasn’t noticed me. When we first met she was a wreck. She didn’t know what was going on, who she was. Then we met again and she was still in the same boat only more frustrated. Now I look at her and she walks with much more confidence. Grace is now in a position where she can carry herself. This is why fate brought us together once again.

Helen trips and falls. I rush over to see if she’s okay. Sometimes I see her more like a little sister than a niece. I can’t help but worry. She’s alright and only scraped her knee. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

“Right, right,” I laugh.

When I get up, Grace, fate, she notices I’m here. She excuses herself from a redheaded friend and starts to walk over. It’ll be awkward to talk in the middle of the playground so I walk back over to my bench.

“So I’m guessing you live here?” she greets me.

“You’d be right,” I chuckled.

She sits next to me as she texts someone back. I look over to her redheaded friend who’s walking the trail. The girl checks her phone and looks at us. She rolls her eyes and starts to walk up the Darkwood hill.

“What are you doing here?” I ask Grace.

“I’m just hanging out with my friend. She’s having some boy issues.”

“Oh? What about?”

“Well, she’s back from New York and has a boyfriend now. She was sort of seeing this guy here and she hasn’t told him yet. She was going to do it yesterday but she didn’t have the heart.”

“Well, why not?”

Grace shrugs, “She’s scared of losing her best friend.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is. What about you? It’ll be awkward if you’re here by yourself.”

I laugh, “No, no. I’m here with my niece. She likes to come here a lot.”

“Oh, I thought she was your daughter.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“I dunno, like 30?”

This is the first casual conversation we’ve had that doesn’t involve Elizabeth. Grace is funny. “What? No, I’m 23.”

“Oh, you look older.”

“Wow, I’m hurt.”

Grace laughs. It’s a laugh similar to Elizabeth. The resemblance is there now that I think of it. I wouldn’t question it if I was told they were sisters. I could see a world if Elizabeth wouldn’t have died, the two of them would have been great friends. Elizabeth would take Grace under her wing and through the friendship, Grace would become the succeeding queen of Mickle Ray High. The two of them would have been unstoppable. But it doesn’t matter because Ellie is dead.

Grace leads a different path now. She’s with a different crowd. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not. It doesn’t help that Grace stood in front of Elizabeth when she died. I wonder how she felt at that moment. I wonder what Elizabeth thought about that moment. I hope she was at peace when she did, even though I know she wasn’t.

“You busy later?” Grace asks.

I shrug, looking over to my niece. “I gotta take Helen home, then heading to work. You?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll just stay home and play League.”

“League?”

“Yeah, its uh, computer game.”

“No, I know what it is. I play it too. What role do you play? I mostly jungle but I’m pretty good at ADC.”

“Mid and support. Oh my god, we should play together sometime. What’s your name?”

Helen gets tagged IT and starts to run around the playground trying to get someone else. She’s never been the fastest runner but she can outsmart everyone, that’s what makes her so good at the game. “Silent Memoria, all one word. Only the S is capitalized.”

Grace writes it down on her phone, “Cool, do you play Ranked? I’m Gold one, almost in my promos.”

“Gold one? That’s pretty impressive.”

“I know right? I’m trying to get to Diamond next year, maybe even become a pro.”

Helen tags someone but falls again. She’s right, she isn’t a baby anymore and I shouldn’t worry about one fall. Helen gets right back up like nothing ever happened. “Diamond is ambitious. You think you can do it?”

“I don’t know, maybe. You don’t think I can?”

“I believe you can do whatever your heart desires as long as that passion burns bright enough. If you doubt yourself, might as well give up now.”

Grace snorts and almost laughs, “That’s some shitty motivational advice. Is it not okay to have doubts?”

I shrug again. “I mean, short doubts sure. Like if you’re having a bad day and you’re not feeling it, sure, have doubts. I’m talking about that long term desire. The flame can grow or shrink, but you should never let it die. That’s what I mean when I say you shouldn’t doubt yourself. It’ll just defeat you because once you lose that first flame, it’s done.”

“You’re a diamond player, aren't you?”

I almost laugh. “It doesn’t matter. If you want to go pro, it’s not going to happen just because you want to.”

“Does that apply to everything else? Everything else I want?”

“Yeah,” I answer.

Helen jumps off the playground set to avoid getting tagged. She rolls over and starts sprinting around and avoiding the tagged person like a monkey. She’s an unlimited ball of energy.

“Will you be on tonight?”

“Yeah, probably. Wanna play?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll add you. But I gotta go back to my friend, Emily. She’s waiting for me. It’s nice to see you again, Felix.”

Grace gets up from the bench and stands over me for a second. “Fate brought us together, I doubt it’ll pull us apart.”

Grace laughs, “Well see you. Tell your niece I said hi.”

I watch Grace walk up the Darkwood hill. By the time she reaches the top, she disappears. Mom always said that Fate can be controlled and manipulated. She told me that our actions create consequences that in turn create the wheels of fate. She said that it’s my father’s fault for leaving that she lays her hands on me. That was always fated to happen.

I’m thinking that Elizabeth’s suicide caused the wheels of fate to roll down a road that none of us expected.

Perhaps that’s what Destiny is.

Helen jumps down from the playground once again, this time she doesn’t get up right away.