Perfect Match

Perfect Match (7)

Despite the fact that it was the dead of winter in the southern hemisphere, Sydney was warm. It didn’t have the same blazing temperatures of the United States, but Cari could still wander around in a t-shirt without needing to wear a coat as well.

Australia was wonderful. It reminded her of home in many ways, but it was still so different that she experienced something new everywhere she went. She found herself growing comfortable amongst the accents and the slang within days of her arrival, and her urge to go home seemed to be passing.

Her fourth day in Sydney was when things started to go downhill.

Everywhere that she went, there were couples. To make matters worse, she saw multiple pairs that looked like her friends. They had just begun to appear somehow, and her first few blissful days in Australia faded as she was pressed in on all sides by happy pairs.

She journeyed from Sydney to Melbourne in the hopes that a change of scenery would improve things. When she first set out to explore the city, everything seemed fine, but as she got used to the streets and the locations, her focus was drawn from her route to the people around her.

It was when she caught her reflection in a window as she walked down the street that everything fell apart.

Around her, there were couples going about their day. Nearly every single person in the crowd was talking on their cell phone, or wearing the familiar expression that meant they were thinking about their partner as their partner thought about them. Anyone who wasn’t paired off in some fashion looked like they were still in high school. A sea of people surrounded her, and in the window, she saw a petite girl with messy blonde hair staring with wide, hopeless eyes.

That was when she ran.

She ignored the stares of everyone around her as she sprinted down the street. It wasn’t until she caught sight of a familiar sign that she slowed.

Bookstores were everywhere, all over the world, and they were her refuge when things went wrong. She ducked inside and settled herself on a chair in the corner of the shop, clutching her arms around her stomach. A few people glanced at her, but they continued on with their day and left her to sit there with her thoughts.

It wasn’t fair, she thought to herself. It wasn’t fair that she could try so hard and never be good enough for her mother. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t find the one thing that would make her mother proud. She had tried so hard to be supportive of her friends and her family, but everything still seemed so far out of her reach. It seemed stupid, looking at it from an outsider’s perspective. People were always talking about how it was a shame that every female in literature was portrayed on her quest to find her match, but they had never lived it. They didn’t understand what it was like to be the last one who seemed like she would always be on her own. Was it so wrong for her to want what everyone else seemed to have?

She stared at the swirling pattern of the carpet. It was different from the carefully selected tan carpet of the bookstore back home. The pattern was reminiscent of galaxies and paintings, the colors whirling together to form bright loops on a dark background. Most people didn’t like patterns like that in bookstores, because it was felt that they detracted from the product, the books themselves, but Cari found the carpet complimentary.

She was still staring at the carpet when she heard a soft voice.

“Are you all right?”

She looked up to see a young woman looking down at her, a worried expression in her blue eyes.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” the young woman said. “I was in the street when I saw you run, and I followed because you looked upset and no one else was going after you, so I assumed that you were probably here alone. My name is Kelsey Garnett.”