I would like to thank to every one who reviewd and helped me to choose which story I should write first. As this idea won (by a few points), I will start with this one ;) I hope not to disappoint you. The next chapter will be more extensive. I promise :)
Do you believe in coincidences?
"Coincidence is God's way of being anonymous", said Laura Pedersen in her Best Bet's novel.
And that's what I learned at school. But do you know what? I don't think everything happens for a reason. There is cause and effect. Why and wherefore, that's a whole other situation. Coincidence is human's trying to explain the unexplained.
What many individuals do not realize is that our minds, in hopes of connecting events together, often find patterns within meaningless data, like they are some sort of sign of a bigger meaning to events, when in reality you did something for that to happen.
What I'm going to confess is an example of what I just said, but deep inside I know that God had something to do with this, because…
It all started when I was still going to High school. I was young and so in love with my best friend, Brittany. We were in the Cheerios squad of McKinley High and we ran the world. I loved her so much that sometimes I forgot about everything else completely, even my own health and wellbeing. Yeah, I was that stupid I guess. I chose her because she showed me that she was different from all the others. She was nothing like my parents. I had a family although it was never a real family because my parents lived to make money and I was nothing but a hindrance for them. Brittany was generous and taught me how to speak and not to make use of violence. She was the most harmless person of the whole world, but when I opened up my heart to her she crushed my hearts in the palm of her hand by telling me she loved me but in a different way. (What?) Yeah, people do that often. Although we'd sex many times, she was in love with a stupid boy and well, shit happens. I've tried to find new ways to hate her every day because then at least it wouldn't hurt so much, but everything was out of your control. I couldn't sleep at night for months, because when I closed your eyes, she still was in my dreams to remind me that I was alone.
One day, I realize that I could never, ever have her again; I have finally hit the lowest low and I knew that no one could bring me up. It was making me insane that I could feel her presence everywhere, though she wasn't there with me. I had to take in that she had told me that she didn't love me and I tried to do anything to say those same words...and mean it, but I couldn't. The pain was so great that I felt that giving up altogether was the only choice. When your heart has been ripped out, and ignored, yet still can't let go you have to build your walls so high that no one could break them.
So, I did that and since I couldn't find any reason to live for… I've joined the army.
I saw flames engulfed vehicles and incinerated bodies, turning them to dusty ash and blackened bones. Those images and experiences were recorded in my mind and I know that they will never go away. Ironic is to think that I could have joined those ashes but I'm still alive thanks to a photograph. Yeah, a fucking photo.
I was running next to my group beneath a sky so dark that it seemed night, although it was still dawning. I was tired as fuck and we were finally coming back to our tents. I don't know why but I slowed down for a minute so I could catch my breath, and it was then, from the corner of my eye, that I spotted the dull gleam of a photograph, half-buried in the dirt. I went to pick it up and noticed that it had been cheaply but neatly laminated, probably to protect it from the elements. I rubbed my fingers on the photo to clean the image and that was the first time I saw her. The blonde with the smile and the hazel mischievous eyes, wearing a red sundress and she had in her arms a 'little version of her' that was smiling, too. Behind them was a banner showing the words Hampton fairgrounds.
You can call it coincidence or whatever you want, but at the moment when I turned the photo and read those 'Keep safe' words, a bomb exploded to millimeters of distance where I was and suddenly I was floating surrounded by flames.
Breath in
Breath out
Breath in
Breath out
I crashed against something and then everything was black.
…
..
.
When I woke up, Mike, my best friend who was in my squad, was in front of me smiling widely.
"You're hard to kill, huh", he joked and leaned to hug me so gently to not hurt me. I was nearly all plastered. I couldn't form any words yet but the only thing I could think of was in that photo that's saved my life.
"You must consider yourself lucky, López, the others three that were next to you died", he gave me a sad smile. Then, he extended his hand to give me the picture, "Her husband was one of them", he said and spent all day telling me about their friendship. How small is the world, isn't it? She was the wife of my best friend's classmate in High school. "That picture was supposed to keep him safe, but it saved you instead", Mike told me. How should I feel about that? Fuck it. "You owe your life to this photo", and he was right about that. If I had not seen that picture, I would be dead right now. But I did and I wouldn't know if to say that it was a sign or something, but perhaps that photo was exactly there to save me. And since that moment I found a reason to live for.
I wasn't going to stop till I find her.
…
..
.
After eleven months of recovery, they allowed me and my squad to return to our houses. That meant returning to Lima and I wasn't ready to run into Brittany and found out how well she did without me while I was dodging bullets and bombs for five years. So I stopped next to my friend, "I want to go with you to Hampton", I stated and he knew that he couldn't do anything to make me change my mind. Mike huffed and puffed a lot but then nodded his head.
"Whatever you are planning in that crazy head of yours, rethink it before you fuck everything up", he advised me and I rolled my eyes to him. How bad could things go?
If I had only had some idea of what was going to happen before I got on his old truck, I would have saved me for several things.
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See u soon xx