Page 108 of The Fate Factor

By the time I got to my apartment, I’d spiraled into a full-on panic wondering if this was more than just a fight with Noel. If she might disappear completely the way she did two years ago. The thought made me feel like there was a vacuum hose attached to my lungs, sucking all of my air.

I toss my phone in the cupholder and tip my head back against the headrest. “I think I fucked it up.”

Em blows out a breath. “Jameson, I’m usually the first one to jump on you for being an idiot when it comes to women, and I don’t know the whole story, but I don’t get the feeling you did this by yourself.” I turn my head to look at her but she’s staring thoughtfully out the windshield. “Let me guess. Something scared her?”

I press my palms into my eyes. “Yeah, that’s kind of her thing.”

“It’s yours too.”

I’d take that punch if I thought I deserved it, but I handed Noel my whole beating heart. Even after the hotel when I started to get thatplaying with firefeeling, I pushed through it.

“I went all in with her, Em. Even scared, I was doing the hard thing. But once again, I was the only one. Christ, what is it about me that makes loving me so damn conditional?”

Em turns to me, her eyes wide. “Jamie.”

“No, don’t pity me, just tell me what it is because I’ve been trying to get it for a long fucking time, and I can’t figure it out.”

“You’re asking the wrong question, J. If someone thinks that about you, then they’re not for you. But tell me why on earth you think Noel is one of those people, because as an outside observer, that is not what I see.”

But that’s a big chunk of it, isn’t it? What’s missing to the outside observer. The thing Noel kept even from me.

“Noel and I were part of the vision she had that night on the roof,” I confess. “Shesawus the same way she saw everything else. She told me on our trip to the mountain.”

This stuns Em silent like I thought it might, but not for long. “And you didn’t like that.”

I huff a laugh. I more than didn’t like it. It pressed on a bruise I didn’t even know was still there, but I stuffed it way down deep because the thought of losing her was way worse than a stupid blow to my ego.

But the thing about shoving stuff down and never dealing with it, is it becomes like a smear across your vision. Like someone has taken their thumb and pressed a blurry spot in the center of your sunglasses, or dragged their dirty palm down your windshield. Your whole world becomes filtered through this thing that’s between you and whatever you’re looking at. I couldn’t see us the same way after that.

I was an imposter. A fraud who got here by some stroke of luck. Just like my career.

I rub at my chest where it feels tight with anxiety. “It turns out the vision was wrong anyway. Becca didn’t even cheat on me.”

“Hold up. Beccawhat?” Em puts her blinker on, her eyes darting between me and the road. “The baggage from that is, like, half of your personality.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, it was wrong. Apparently a few of them have been wrong, but Noel failed to mention that until we ran into Becca and it all came out. Everything I thought happened, didn’t. Our whole break up was over a misunderstanding.”

“Jesus. So are you two… talking again?”

I look at her, incredulous. “I don’t want Becca back.”

“Jamie. This is hard to keep up with.”

“I don’t want Becca. Whether she went through with it or not, what we had wasn’t what I thought. I just want to quit getting shit so wrong all the time. Do you know what that’s like, to never be able to trust your head?”

“You’re not a head guy, Jamie. You’re a gut guy. And if Noel’s the opposite, maybe that’s why you two work so well. Yin and yang and all that.”

“Yeah well, she doesn’t see it that way. She said she wouldn’t have even stayed here if it wasn’t for that vision.”

Em’s face softens. “If she thinks that, she’s lying to herself. People do that when they’re scared. You tell yourself you need Wes because you’re scared to fuck up what you have. So shetold herself she needed whatever calling this fate gave to her. I personally don’t think either one deserves the credit you’re giving out.” Em turns into the long driveway to the rec center, slowing for some kids crossing the road on bikes. “I mean, seriously, Jamie. If you can’t see the way that girl looks at you, I don’t know how to help you.”

“Not to sound cocky, Em, but a lot of women look at me.”

“Sure,” she says, pulling into a parking spot and cutting the engine. “They look at you—” she pushes her finger into my cheek before I can dodge her. “Noel looks. At. You.” This time her finger lands directly in the center of my chest, and I swear I feel it sink right through the bone and scrape against my heart. I have to turn away.

“Look, this is all way out of my wheelhouse—psychic visions, destiny, and all that—but I do know that ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been fixated on some future version of yourself that you’re still trying to achieve, and the whole time, there’s been a you right now who’s pretty fucking great. If Noel says she loves that you, I think you should believe her because I would bet it was a big deal for her to say it. I bet she was scared as hell.”

The weight of that bears down on me at once, and I picture Noel that night I passed out on her porch, rightfully terrified. I knew she was scared that night at Fortune too, when I begged her to be a psychic conduit for me even after she admitted she was here dealing with some heavy stuff of her own. I haven’t really considered how scary the rest of it is, though. The enormity of what I asked of her. Carrying the fact that she and I might be destined all by herself.

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