PROLOGUE

It’s a four-letter word.

It begins with an "F".

Fate.

The principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be and happen as they do. Fate can make mistakes. But it always goes back to fix them.

Once upon a time, in the state of Connecticut there were two very different young people. They met and things were never easy; they challenged each other from the first conversation.

There was a boy. He was handsome, charming and rich. He seemed to have everything. He thought he had everything. A great car, credit cards and a string of girls who didn’t want to talk. He had everything money could buy. Yet he always knew there was something missing. Then he met her. The one that made him think, made him question everything he believed and find it lacking. The one that melted the ice. The one that got away.

There was a girl, beautiful, smart, innocent and kind. She was thrown into an unfamiliar world. Where people were pawns on his marble chessboard. She knew she wasn’t like them. She couldn’t hurt people or use them to get ahead. She refused to play the game by their rules. They knew she wasn’t like them. She didn’t have the money or the power or the connections. They expected her to fail. She took everyone by surprise and made her way to the top.

It was a classic story. Boy met girl and fell in love. Girl met boy and fell in dislike. It was supposed to be a love/hate relationship. It was supposed to have a big romantic finish. There were supposed to be fireworks and stars and violin concertos. Then things went awry.

The girl was willful, like her mother, and fought fate’s plan. She had the met someone. The type of boy every twelve-year-old girl dreams of. He was cute and sweet, the kind that remembers anniversaries and has floppy hair. The boyfriend broke the girl’s heart and she went looked for some to distract her.

She went to a party. A party complete with a DJ and French Soda. A party straight out of a teen movie. There she found the boy. There, by a shiny piano, she kissed the boy. It was not the right time. The girl began to cry and ran away. It was not the big romantic ending of a novel.

Things between the girl and boy were awkward. Every time they touched, they were reminded of what happened. Neither one was prepared for the feelings those memories evoked. They talked and tried being friends. Then the boy began to feel vulnerable. He didn’t do vulnerable.

He wanted to be more than her friend. He needed to be more than her friend. He bought concert tickets. PJ Harvey tickets. He took it for granted that the girl would accompany him. He pushed too hard. Pulled the first leg out from under the table of their friendship.

That day the boyfriend showed up. The teenybopper fantasy boy. The girl thought she loved him, she said she loved him. But not before she said she hated the boy.

The boy heard the girl profess hatred toward him. "I hate him!" Three small words. Tiny words that caused his heart to splinter into pieces. The boy walked away. That summer he was given an opportunity and he grabbed it. He left. Left his family, his friends, his school and his old ways behind. He wanted to strip himself of the pretensions, the games, and most of all, the memory of her. The memory of what she did to him. He never quite succeeded.

Six years later fate sets out to fix its mistake. The boy and the girl meet again.