𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 | Tic Tac Toe

Ｔｉｃ   Ｔａｃ   Ｔｏｅ

✫

I puncture my finger into the snow and draw an X at the top left hand corner of our makeshift tic tac toe board. Birdie places a rock underneath it casually. "This is where you wanted to take me?" I ask him, slightly sarcastic. 

He shrugs, looking around the area. "This place is where you and Arielle got lost, didn't you? You were trying to find Chloe?" he recalls. I tense my shoulders, knowing I didn't get too much into detail about my sister and that particular story, but after all, I have a hard time remembering anything I tell him. I draw another X and smile, threading a line across the board in a straight diagonal. 

"Did I tell you that?" I ask, and he shrugs. I scope around the trees, but everything looks the same as it had when we first arrived in the trails. We'd been weaving in and out of town so much so that I'd almost forgotten my direction back home. "Chloe got lost during one of our walks because she darted unexpectedly and Arielle let go of the leash. She was crying hysterical and I kept trying to calm her down. Eventually I did, and when she was calm, we found Chloe over by the lake eating a hotdog that she must've gotten in town." 

Birdie laughs as I continue to say, "we joke around about that day like it was a comedy movie. We went up to people and they'd give us crazy directions and stories like 'I saw her by the grill down the street and they gave her some of their food and water, then she went to the clothing store and got a bow.'" I laugh, interrupting myself and feeling the wave of that laughter bring tears to my eyes at the memory. "It was good times." 

"You love your sister, don't you?" Birdie implores with big blue eyes, begging me to enlist all my deepest darkest secrets, which I've sort-of already done. I nod my head slowly like I've lost a sense of balance. I wipe my hand along the snow and the flakes collect on my palm while I draw another board. 

"Yeah, I do." 

"She wants you to be healthier, doesn't she?" Birdie places a rock at the center of the board. 

"Yeah, but she'll be better off. I'm her stupid older her brother who had to retake classes and I'd get detention, I'm completely insane and I have nightmares every other day. I take away all of mom and dads' attention from her during her a pivotal time in her life," I explain, lost in a mixture of the past and the future. The winds touch my cheeks again, a coldness tints them red. 

He sighs through his nostrils and watches me intently while I draw an X beside the gray rock. I study the visual before me and his words dance around the shell of my ears like ballerinas on the tips of their feet. "Don't you want to make things better for her, give her closure that you at least want to meet her halfway and help yourself? Sometimes the best way to help another person is to help yourself first." 

I sit in those words, the cuffs of my jeans hardening in an awkward attempt around my ankle as Birdie positioned another rock by the X I'd drawn before. I stare at the board, narrowing my eyes. "I already did, and failed." 

"You know what I mean." Birdie waits for my next move on the board, but I meet his eyes and stare silently, begging for more of his advice, but not the advice that I needed, the advice that I wanted to hear. "I don't want to needle in people's crocheted blankets, or paint on someone's masterpiece, but don't you think, even a little part of you, which asks yourself if you're only precasting inevitable happiness by trying to avoid it?" 

"What?" 

"Dying, Lye!" he yells to the woods, his voice circles trees alongside me. "There's a future, everyone has some form of it, I promise you, it's worth the wait. It's annoying and possibly, life will get worse right now, but one day, in one minute you're gonna laugh to yourself and be like; 'I would've missed out on all of this?'" He pauses and elaborates, "I lied before, death if inevitable fate, but it can be free-will, but it doesn't have to be." He gestures to the board. "It's your turn." 

"You think I need to go to the facility," I admit, ignoring the board for a moment. 

He shakes his head with a quiet tsk. His lips form to a small curve, that of a misshapen snowflake. "I never said that," he murmurs, "unless you think it?" 

I lean forward and draw another X onto the snow, my finger turns unbearably numb and I can't feel it. "I'll be prodded at and tested on like a science experiment," I say, "I'll never be free again, at least free from October twenty-fourth, I'll forever live in that day." 

"You honestly think by doing this you're escaping October twenty-fourth?" he asks, genuinely concerned. "You're running from it. And yeah, you might be prodded at for a while, but never forever. Forever is a timeless infinity that nothing in this world can last in. Forever is a concept, not a rule and certainly not fate," Birdie assures, chuckling to himself as he places a rock below two others and smiles, proud of himself. "I won." He leans towards me and adds, "checkmate, Bitch." 

"Did you ever have a girlfriend?" I question, laughing to myself as I clear the board again for another round. I hear him scowl and I raise my chin to see that grin across his lips. I read in his eyes the words he spits between chuckles. 

"I thought we went over this." 

"Right!" I snap like a punchline. "Boyfriend?" 

He cocks his head. "Pretty sure I never said that either. Look, wanna know the truth? I float between people, you see me and then you don't. I never stay too long with an individual, they'll think I'm there to stay. It's like Nannie McPhee but different, y'know?" He looks as if he'd stolen candies from an old lady. He wore a greedy smile and eyes painted in a different layer of blues than there were before. 

"Oh, so you're a player?" I ask, momentarily seeing him frown. 

"Sure. And I know what you're getting at, if I could help with girlfriend advice," he mockingly retorts. "Truth is, people are like seasons, they're leaves on trees and birds before migration. They come and go, and sometimes they come back, and sometimes you have to let go. People change and it's best not blame each other for staying in one season forever." He shrugs his shoulders, rolls his eyes and I swore there were tears. "It's meant to be, fate changes all the time, and accordingly with free-will." He then says, "I've never talked to anyone this long, and I know that you need help." 

I decide not to touch any further with what he meant, but nod my head and draw an X between two boxes. "I go to this facility and then what? You promise to visit me?" 

He's silent, as is the woods, veiled in blankets of snow and imprinted with our words. This spot significantly held more importance than it did days or even months prior. He places a rock over my X and says, "it depends how much you want to change yourself." 

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