Dots

Coincidence

Leila believed that there was no such thing as a coincidence.
She understood that not everyone finds true love.
But this...
This was absolutely ridiculous.
Too ridiculous to be coincidental.

"You're joking right?" She asked her best friend who sat across the booth from her with a sheepish smile.
"I'm sorry but it's the truth," her best friend, Maisy said.
Leila sighed heavily and tried not to slam her head down on the table.
"There's no way this is a coincidence! This is the fifth guy I've liked in the past 2 years, to date someone else just as I started falling for him... do you think I'm cursed or something?" Leila asked her friend as she frowned at her reflection in the diner window.
Maisy rolled her eyes.
"You're so melodramatic. You're not cursed it's just..." Maisy  paused to think before finishing off, "bad luck and worse timing."
Now Leila was the one who rolled her eyes.
"Yes because that makes everything sound a whole lot better," she said sarcastically to her friend who simply shrugged.
"Well, I can't help you with boys but I can get you one of those lemon meringue pies you really like," Maisy said, instantly perking up the idea of dessert, "Just sit here while I go order us some."
"Well I'm going to be single and lonely forever so it's not like I've got anything better to do," Leila mumbled as Maisy slid out from the booth.
Maisy pretended she hadn't heard her friend wallowing in self pity and made a beeline for the dessert stands.

Leila continued to mumble self-pityingly as she glared at her reflection, wondering what was so wrong with her that five consecutive guys, she'd thought she'd shared a mutual connection with, had ended up dating other girls less than a week later. There was no way that was coincidental.

Meanwhile, across the street, on the roof top of a bridal boutique two cherubs and Cupid sat watching the girl.
"I think she's onto us," said one of the cherubs to Cupid.
Cupid rolled his eyes.
"She doesn't even believe we exist Martin, hakuna your tatas," Cupid replied to the oversized man baby he called a friend.
"Well, whether she's onto us or not, I still think this is cruel," piped in the scrawnier of the two cherubs. Danny had always been a softy when it came to unrequited love.
"It's not cruel Dan, it's just business," stated Cupid as he briefly looked away from the sulking girl to face his frowning friend.
"I get that none of those guys were the one for her but did you really have to make them fall in love with someone else right as her feelings for them grew?" Danny asked raising a disapproving eyebrow at his boss.
"She's just an assignment Dan, you'll get over it and so will she if she meets the one," Martin replied in place of Cupid as they watched the friend sit down with a pie.
Martin winced, "if she keeps on at this rate with all the pies and ice cream, it's going to be very hard to convince Mr right to go out with her."
Dan scowled at his colleague's insensitivity and then went to ask Cupid another question before realising he was gone.
"Where'd Cupid go?" Dan asked just as they spotted the man himself approaching the table the girls were sitting at.

"I'm serious Maisy, someone is really messing with me," Leila stated urgent as she stabbed at her piece of piece of pie.
Maisy opened her mouth to retort but before she could, another voice did it for her.
"Wow, you must really think Cupid is out to make you miserable," said the guy who sat at the table next to their booth. Leila didn't even hesitate at the presence of the stranger, who had invited himself into their conversation, and replied.
"As a matter of a fact, I think that's exactly what that bow and arrow wielding sadist is trying to do," Leila stated confidently and with barely concealed anger.
She'd stopped pitying herself after her first bite of pie and now she was just irritated.
The boy at the table raised his brows in surprise at her outburst before giving her a cheeky smile.
"And why exactly do you think that Cupid, the bow and arrow wielding  sadist, is out to get you specifically?" The boy asked.
"Well I'm young, naive and a hopeless romantic so I might as well have stuck a bullseye to my forehead that says 'please break my foolish heart,'" she replied, feeling her anger once again melt into sadness.
The boy at the table furrowed his brows.
"Does it really bother you that much to lose something you never had in the first place?" He asked curiously.
Leila probably would've started crying right then and there, if her best friend hadn't decided to save her from breaking down in front of the stranger.
"Sorry to interrupt your interrogation of my friend but exactly how long have you been eavesdropping on our girl talk?" Maisy questioned as she eyed the boy suspiciously.
"Probably from the part you told your friend here about Rodger getting a girlfriend," the boy replied with a strange amount of cool for someone who'd just been called out as the intrusive eavesdropper.
Maisy's eyes narrowed at the boy before she grabbed Leila's hand, with one of her own and the pie with the other, and stood up.
"Well then, I guess we'll have to take our conversation elsewhere," Maisy said as she began practically dragging her friend out of the diner.
Before they could exit the diner though, the strange boy spoke again.
"Leila," he shouted. Leila paused and turned back to face the boy.
"Cupid may be a sadist but have faith in love. Mr. Right could be right outside that door."
Leila barely had time to process his words before Maisy had manhandled her out of the diner and then right into someone else. Leila crashed hard into someone, sending them both stumbling down and finding herself laying on top of a strange guy on the street.

Leila remembers Maisy apologizing to both of them and the strange guy saying it was no problem.
Leila also remembers how she saw the guy not even a week later and he introduced himself as Toby Jones.
She remembers how they became friends and then, how they became more than friends.
She remembers moving in with him and the million megawatt smile on his face as she walked down the aisle.
She even remembers that strange fuzzy feeling she got in the pit of her stomach the first time their eyes met.
What she only remembers later though, as she sits watching her daughter and husband run around the yard, is something about the strange boy from the diner.

He'd called her by her name.

Neither Maisy nor anyone else had addressed her by her name in that conversation but that strange boy did. He'd also told her love was right outside the door and it was.
Leila looked at her husband with a thoughtful look and then smiled.
It was probably just a weird coincidence.