“The Pages of Fate Have Twists” — A Flash Fiction by Aries

I sat on the sandy beach, watching the water move like it was controlled by an external force, and although I knew the water was pushed by an external force, it still had me wondering how it was possible for such a great body of nature be pulled around. Even the moon, as it hung in the sky, shining this night—and was known to the old ones as one of the greatest forces of the universe—still moved around and gave way for the sun when it had shown its radiance through the long night.

The chilly wind of the night in mid-October had me clutching the jacket I wore like my life depended on it; it was my fault that I was in this predicament, but I could not handle another minute in that apartment filled with sweaty and horny adults. Now, I am wondering why I came to the party in the first place. Was it to finally get closure?

My social media friend suggested that it would be a great idea to go to the party since it was a party he loved with his every breath, and they were holding his memorial service, but who was I kidding? I mean, he was my Romeo to my Juliet, and as cliché, as it might sound, it was what it was.

“Are you okay, Amanda?” a voice said from behind me. I was so startled that I yowled like an injured fox and scrambled away to safety. It was not like I cared about my safety before, but I was all alone on a deserted beach.

“Do not do that, David,” I said as I clutched my chest to calm the sudden acceleration of my heart from the scare.

“People say I have light footsteps like a ninja.”

“That is cute, but I appreciate my shitty life as it is now,” I replied and sat down back on the sand. David joined me and handed me a bottle of whiskey; maybe I needed to get wasted, rather than run away from a party like a scared little girl.

I looked at David and asked the question that had been tormenting me since he showed up, “Did I embarrass myself back there?”

“Yes, you did—”

“Damn it. I knew I should have stayed at home with a copy of Todd’s After, eating snickers,” I cut him short.

“I was going to say that you embarrassed yourself in a good way, but we can totally go with yours. What happened back there, Amanda?”

I knew I could trust David, but telling him everything did not sit well with my independent personality, but that could also eat shit tonight.

“I have three goals: graduate from an Ivy League university, get into medical school, and follow in my father’s well-established footsteps. Everything was going exactly as planned until the local bad boy was delivered to my doorsteps, literally.

“From the moment we met, my old life became unrecognizable, but I had no regrets. I was utterly captivated by him: his smirk, his heart, and his sharp wit. He pushed me to live, to be wild, to pursue the dream I have always hidden inside.

“To the rest of the world, we made no sense. I, the girl from the gilded New England coast, while Joshua, from the small city of New Haven. To us, we were destiny.

“Together, we had it all; and we were desperately and madly in love. Until we did not, and one tragic night changed everything,” I told David while looking at the moving waves; they reminded me badly of how swiftly my romance had been washed away.

“What happened that night, Amanda?” David asked.

I patted his back and made my way back to the party. I could feel David’s stare on my back, but it just showed how much that night had affected me, and how I could never step into a boat ever again.

The way his eyes stared at me as the water dragged him beneath the surface would forever haunt me. He gave me the only lifejacket left after the other was swept overboard. I watched as he struggled to get back to the surface, the storm making an effort to drown him under its torrent. Suddenly, there was blood everywhere and he never came back to the surface. His body was found a few days later, swollen and with a big cut on the back of his head. He died saving me; that was the truth and I lived it.