Fate is Like a Woven Cloth

by bewilder22

or hair, even.

When my other iPod had a heart attack and died suddenly, this was left on it, and I lost this idea with a couple others. Well, my newer one was synced as a new one and the other noted weren't transfered. Well, that one spazzed out on me, and I get another one (I'm seeing a cycle here). This was synced with my old account and now I'm dying beause of all these old idea I forgot! Sharing time! Technology hates me...

Fate is Like a Woven Cloth... or Hair

June marked the beginning of camp. It also marked the beginning of different faces, newer challenges... bigger bets, and Travis was all ready.

He laid down on his bunk, arms behind his head, feet crossed, soaking in the new summer vibe when one of his younger sisters approached him.

"Travis?" she asked. He smiled and sat up looking at her expectantly.

"The young Carly approacheth my bunk. What doth thou needeth, my lovely?"

"Doth needith to stop this tomfoolery," Sam cracked from his upper left.

"Come hither so I can slappith you silly!" he demanded beginning an arguement with her.

"Hey, Carly," Nick whispered from the bunk next to Travis's on the right, "tell him to shut his pie hole."

"Travis!" she exclaimed. His head whipped to the ten year-old breaking off his creative discussion with Sam.

"Yes, m'am!" he replied attentive. She smiled and held out a comb and ponytail holder.

"Can you braid my hair?"

Cackling was heard from a bunk a little ways down from his. Tessa cut in before Travis could respond, "Travis... braiding hair? Ha! It just doesn't click in my head!"

"What?" he exclaimed. "I could braid hair if I tried!"

"Wanna bet?" Nick asked mischeviously. Tessa dropped lightly on the floor.

"Oh, yeah." She walked down the row to meet him in the middle of the cabin. "It bet you couldn't even by the end of the summer."

Travis scowled at her. They were nose to nose

"You're on! Terms?"

"It has to be a braid. No fishtail, no twist, no flippity doo-da. Satisfactory braid on the last day of camp is the goal."

"Easy. Rewards?"

"You lose, Travis, and I get your winnings from our last game of poker."

"And when I win, you have to fork over your Athena blackmail photos."

"Aphrodite."

"Hephaestus."

"Apollo

"Deal."

The two shook on it.

"This'll be a piece of cake."

"You're so going to lose," Tessa laughed. He begged to differ.

"I'm going to rock this so hard, that I'm gonna wait and chill before starting!"

"You do that," she replied walking out of the cabin. She shook her head, and once he was out of earshot, she whispered, "Idiot."

...

TWO MONTHS LATER

...

Camp is ending in less than a day, and everyone is a buzz about it. There's campers packing, crying, and even getting in last minute pranks.

It's one o' clock in the afternoon, and Travis saunters around looking for a chance to make easy money. There's an Apollo kid trying to zip up his backpack outside his cabin, and Travis smirks in thought of all that money his famous parents gave their child in his sticky fingers.

Then Tessa comes out of their cabin and pats his back gently.

"Ready fork over your poker winnings? Tee minus five hours til braiding. Better bring your A Game."

Travis is sent into a mind of panic. What is she talking about? What poker winning? Then it dawns on him.

The bet.

He has forotten completely and cannot think sraight, but he can't let Tessa know that, so he smiles and says, "Get your pictures ready."

She sneers and walks back inside.

Travis explodes from the porch and begins running around camp thinking of a solution. Who can possibly teach me braiding so quickly? I am such an idiot!

He stops still. There's a little girl walking across the green to a cabin.

And her hair's in a braid.

"You! There! Little girl with the braid!" he yells. She stops and stares qeerly at him.

In a second flat, he's there gripping her arms with desperation.

"How did you do your hair, little girl?" he demands. She glowers.

"My name is Della!" she tosses back.

"I don't care; how did you do your hair?"

"My sister did it," she says deadpanned. He looks her over. Brown hair. Hazel eyes.

Demeter kid.

"Which sister?"

"Katie."

Travis's heart skips a beat. Katie?

Oh, gods, her... why her of all people?

"Katie Gradner?" he asks timidly.

"Yes, can I go now?" Della whines. Travis releases her and she walks away smoothing over her skirt.

"Weirdo," he heard her murmur. Travis was about to give a snappy comeback, but he looked at his watch again. He had already spent five minutes.

He bee-lined for the Demeter cabin.

He was almost through the door when he paused. How should he approach? Suave? Calm, cool, and collected?

He slammed the door open. Panic it was.

"Katie!" he screamed in distress.

She appeared quickly from the bunk line wide-eyed exclaiming,"What's did you do?"

Travis hesitated. Just seeing her made his brain shut-down nowadays, and he wasn't able to move or create audible words. Travis mentally slapped himself. He was on a mission!

"N-nothing! I just need to ask you a huge favor."

She crossed her arms and just leaned up against one of the bunks nonchalantly, "Okay. Shoot."

He sighed preparing for the sob-story of a lifetime, "I know we may not have been the best of friends or colleagues or whatever we are, and I respect that you may not agree to this, but I need your help desperately."

"For what?" she asked cautiously.

Travis collapsed on his knees in front of her, "ImadeabetwithTessathatIcould learnhowtobraihairbytheendof thesummerandIcompletelyslack edoffandhaventlearneditandth ebetendsin," he looked at his watch, "four hours and thirty minutes. Please, teach me!"

He was gripping her hands now. Katie looked at his queerly in an odd mix of fear, embarrassment, and utter bafflement.

"Alright, the clock should be good as new- What in Hades is going on here?" Jake Mason asked. Travis furrowed his eyebrows at the sight of the son of Hephaestus. Were Katie and Jake...? No, it couldn't be. Jake liked Laurel, or at least that's what Sam had said...

"Um, not sure," Katie said pulling her hands away. She turned to Jake. "Uh, but thanks for coming. You're a great friend."

He smiled and left the cabin, but without mouthing "What are you doing?" to Travis. He shrugged and waited til asking, "What was that all about?"

Katie sighed, "He was fixing a broken clock, but that's not important. What was that all about?" She put her hands on her hips the way she did before going into a rant. "You come slamming into my cabin without asking. Then you get down on your knees and say who-knows-what to me. What's going on? And slower this time."

Travis huffed and stood up, "I made a bet with Sam that I could learn how to braid before the end of camp. Well, I forgot, and the deadlines in about four hours."

He plopped down on one of the beds. Katie sat on the one across from him.

"And you want me to teach you?" she asked. He nodded. "How did you know I could braid?"

"That small girl, Bella or whatever. I saw her walking around and asked who did her hair. She said you." He looked her square in the eyes, "Will you please teach me how to braid?"

He expected her to run through a quick line of stipulations and rules and other boring stuff, but she just replied, "Okay."

Travis raised a brow, "Really? You're just going to say yes that easily."

She shrugged, "There's not much to it. Braiding's simple."

"But you have no terms?"

Katie laughed and stood up, "It's braiding, Travis. Not the Declaration of Independence."

She began to rummage through a purple trunk for something. Finally, she pulled a doll out.

"What's that for?"he asked. Katie sat down on a bunk in the front of the cabin, presumably hers. She motioned for him to sit next to her. He followed orders.

"This doll has hair. Hair is what you use to braid."

"Oh... so it's dummy."

"Yep," she said. "Now, I'll show you the basics."

Travis quietly watched as she mowed her fingers nimbly around and around weaving the hair together. Sometimes, he would get sidetracked and end up looking at her face. He loved how she bit her lip without knowing and always seemed to have one strand left behind. Sometimes, he almost brushed it behind her ear for her but caught himself.

Finally, it was his turn to try, and he was pretty bad.

"Don't worry," Katie reassured. "It gets easier."

"How did you learn?" he asked.

"I taught myself," she replied quietly. "Most girls at my school had their moms teach them, but you know..."

"So you taught yourself this?" he exclaimed. "Without help?" She nodded. "You are amazing."

He saw Katie blush in the corner of his eye, but she was pretty good at concealing it, "Uh, thanks. It's nothing really." She cleared her throat, "Uh, back to work."

He started over and over again, each time getting better and better. Finally, he did a pretty decent doll braid.

"Great," Katie said satisfied. "You mastered doll level, but let's see how you do with real hair."

She reached up to her own head and started undoing her pony tail.

"What?" Travis asked.

Katie's wavy hair fell in cascades around her shoulder, "You're going to braid my hair."

Travis froze. He had to braid Katie Gardner's hair. Travis didn't think he could do it. If just seeing her made him woozy, then actually touching her hair... impossible.

But he had to try. He couldn't lose that bet.

So, Travis hiked up his skirt and touched a strand of Katie's hair.

So far so good, he though to himself.

Travis separated Katie's hair into three sections like she taught him. Then he alternately switched them from inside to the outside.

As this was going on, Travis tried not to focus on the softness of her hair or her warm skin from the times his fingers brushed against her neck. It smelled like apples and oranges. He had never really seen Katie with her hair down before, and she needed to do it more often. It made her look even more beautiful than she was, which Travis found hard to believe.

Finally, he tied it off with a ponytail holder and withdrew his hands sadly.

"I think it's done," he said.

Katie stood up and moved to the mirror on the wall. Inspecting his work, her mouth dropped.

"Wow... It's really good, Travis!"

"T-thanks."

Travis grimaced. It was hard for him to hold back now. He'd been entirely to close.

Katie turned around and her smile as replaced by a questionable look.

"Travis, are you okay. You look like your in pain."

"Yeah. I'm... fine," he lied.

"Travis..."

"What?"

"Something's wrong," she stated.

"No there's not."

"You can tell me."

"No, I really can't."

"Look, despite our differences in the past, you can trust me," she said genuinely. Travis wished he could tell her, but he couldn't tell her he liked her. She moved loser. Oh man...

"I don't know... I-"

"I won't judge you."

Katie grabbed his wrist gently, and Travis lost it. He yanked the hand back and sent Katie crashing into him.

His mouth was on hers immediately, and he wasted no time wrapping his arms around her, pressing her more into him.

I'm dead; she's gonna kill me, Travis thought

But then her arms were around his neck. And she was pulling him closer to her. She was kissing him back. Travis moved his hands to her hair. Slowly, he undid the braid he made moments before letting Katie's hair fly everywhere.

He felt it's unbelievable softness as he ran his hands through it, no doubt making it a mess, and occasionally, it would brush against his face.

Apparently, he wasn't the only one obsessed with the others' hair. Travis could feel Katie's hands as the ran through his own hair. She would take a tendril and curl it around her on fingers.

Travis pulled back.

Katie opened her eyes, and Travis became mesmerized with her dazzling hazel eyes. Brown and green. Both suited Katie better than anything.

"You have no idea how hard it's been to keep that from you," she said. He smiled, "I bet I have an idea." Katie laughed.

"Well, I guess we don't have to hide anymore."

"Good. I don't think I could have lasted any longer."

There was a moment of silence until Travis spoke, "I don't know if you've noticed, but you have the best hair I've ever seen."

Katie blushed, "Thanks. Guess it came in handy for once."

"Yeah, I'm glad you taught me... oh no! The bet!" Travis gripped her arms, "What time is it?"

"You have a watch, stupid," she joshed. He looked down. Five till five.

"I gotta go," he said. "Thanks!" Travis gave Katie a peck on the cheek before heading towards the door. Right as he was about to exit, he looked back.

"Katie," he said. She looked up. "I don't see why you even wear braids. You look beautiful with your hair down."

Katie smiled at the ground, "Well, you'd be the first to say that. Thanks, Travis. Now you go in that bet!"

Travis smiled and headed out the door.

…

Tessa was amused, "I didn't think it could be done. Nice job, Travis. How'd you do it?"

Travis smiled, "I had a little help from Katie."

"How much help?" Sam prompted. Nick bumped her, "Look how messy his hair is. What do you think?"

"I dunno. What do you think, Travis."

"I think you're gonna wanna get out of my love life before I kill yours," he replied sitting on his bed.

"And how would you do that?" Tessa demanded. Travis laid down.

"Fate a lot like hair. They can both got you very far. I have access to both."

There was a pause.

"Anybody know what he's talking about?" Sam asked. Nick shrugged.

"Maybe he's narrating his life in his head and wants a Buddha ending."

"I'm trying," Travis said. "Now let me finish. 'Stay tuned in for next week when Travis tackles French Braiding!'"

Tessa, Nick and Sam looked at each other worried.

"Chiron!" Tessa yelled. "Travis officially cracked!"

Hooray for bad endings! I'm going trough the same thing in my book except it at the beginning. Here's what I'm just gonna do...

I've literally tried a billion ways on how to start this whole "explanation" or whatever you may call it, so I'll just start by saying this and go from there.

Hi, I'm Bobby, and I have no idea who I really am!

What I mean is, I used to, at least. Most teenagers are still in the process of finding out who they are in high school, but my old self didn't get very far.

I'm not saying I died and came back to life or anything like that, but I am definitely not the same fun-loving sixteen year-old I was. Shame, I really liked him.

[No, Regina, I am not being self-conceited. Get out of my chapter. You had the prologue!]

Anyway, there is one thing I know I can answer about myself. I am the same Bobby as in the prologue. I've decided to write all my happenings in the past couple of days down to make sure it's all real and that I didn't make it up. My friends's doing the same. We both decided it might be good for us.

So I'm going to start a little before my life completely changed. This is how it all went down.

It was the friday before Thanksgiving break started. Classes were tying down and people were heading away into different cities to visit their families and friends.

Me? I was going to chill with my foster parents and sister and probably do whatever my foster dad wanted me to accomplish (fixing pipes, math, finally cleaning up my room, etc.), but like I have already said, it didn't happen.

It was the end of seventh period. I was walking through the hallway of my high school, South Philadelphia...

The prologues on fictionpress under bewilder22 not the one on my profile. So... yeah! Bye!