FATE

92. Fate

Across the room from me, Jeanne crosses her leg, "Jonah, do you know what Fate is?", she asks.

"You've asked me this before", I remark slowly.

She smiles and nods, seemingly glad to see that I remembered, "yes, I did", she says, "you never answered"

"Fate", I pause, "that's like destiny"

"Fate, destiny", she waves her hand, " It's almost the same thing. The effect of decisions made by a person all through his lifetime"

"And everybody has this"

"Of course", she says, "what do you think yours is?"

I shrug, "I wouldn't know. I've never really thought about it"

"You can look at the decisions you've made so far and you'll get a mental picture of where it may lead you"

I scoff, "with the decisions I've made so far, I'm not sure I'm supposed to even be alive"

She frowns at the indifferent tone in my voice, "well, you are"

"Yep", I smile and nod.

She adjusts herself on the seat before taking the book and pan off her lap. She places it on the coffee table and then claps her hands together.

"Do you think it was possible for Brooke to completely influence the decisions you made?", she asks.

"Completely?", I ask, "no"

"At the end of the day, you would have done what you wanted right?"

"I'm not sure", I glance up at the ceiling, "I mean, she asked me to stop taking drugs and I did"

"Why did you stop for her?"

"To make her happy"

"So would you say what you wanted to do was make Brooke happy?"

I nod.

"See? You still did what you want"

I blink at her briefly. Then I smile at her logic, "makes sense"

She grins and leans back into the chair, "Jonah, everybody makes a whole lot of decisions throughout their lives. These decisions determine their fate. Other people can only influence these decisions but at the end of the day, it all depends on the maker of that decision to do what they want for whatever reason they want to"

"I still don't understand what this has to do with me", I say. Jeanne doesn't usually take this long to get to the point.

She holds her index finger up, "I'm getting there", she says, "you spoke once about your relationship with Hailee and how protective you are of each other"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No", she shakes her head, "you also spoke about her mother"

"I hate that woman"

"Understandable", Jeanne nods, "but do you know why she did the things she did?"

"Because she's a bad person"

"Do you think she could have done things differently?"

"Hell yeah"

"Why didn't she do things differently?"

"Like, I said- she's a bad person and she chose to ruin her daughter instead"

I remember the look on Hailee's face the night she told me about her real mother and how I thought it was the scariest horror story I ever heard. I couldn't phantom how a person could go through so much pain and still act so normally around people. From that day, I knew Hailee was strong and I wanted to be strong for her too. I knew there would be days when she felt down and the mirage she had built to deceive the world would threaten to break and reveal who she was underneath it. I knew on those days, I had to be there for her- to protect her and keep her safe. She learned overtime to do the same for me.