fates

“For breakfast I had French toast and some pineapple and some grapes. . . and a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. . . and a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. . . and that’s all. . . . Oh, and coffee.”
“Sometimes you say something like that, and I think there’s a reason we’re together.”

Ted told me all about his weekend away before the topic shifted. He spent a semester of college in Berlin, and he told me about it over sandwiches-- Cuban this time, with plantain chips. Since I was in maybe fifth grade, I’d thought I’d do a year in France. I even had the paperwork, that winter break when I turned twenty. I just didn’t sign it and I didn’t return it and I didn’t go.

“I don’t regret it, though. I try not to regret anything, but I’m glad I stayed that year. I wouldn’t have Hugo. And I’d be a different person, and I never would have lived with Harper. . . .”
“. . . and you wouldn’t have started the blog. . .”
“. . . and I wouldn’t have met you.”

And looking across the table at each other, we suddenly see all the paths we might have taken and could have taken, drawn all over the world like yellow arrows on a football replay. But the only two that matter, right now, today, are the ones that led us to this table in this restaurant full of music that makes you want to dance, here on a sweaty August Sunday night in Alphabet City.

~beatrix