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— The Killers, When You Were Young
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Chapter Two: When Wally Met Lark...
Sometimes, Lark likes to imagine that her life is a movie.
She likes to pretend she's the main character—the protagonist. This is not because she is particularly self-centred, nor because she has some insatiable need for attention that can only be satisfied by delusions of cinematic grandeur.
It is because of fate, like everything with Lark is. She likes to believe in the notion of fate because the notion of fate comes in tandem with the notion of love. And aren't love and fate, at their core, one and the same? This was something Lark liked to believe—that whatever happened, especially in matters of the heart, was always going to happen. Later down the line, Wally West would contribute to Lark's one-woman symposium on the subject with his own observations—ones that for the most part regarded conjectures on physics, time, and theoretical mathematics. Of the two of them, he is the scientist. She is, of course, the romantic.
In a few months' time, they will be laying on Lark's bed, bodies intertwined, atoms pressed to atoms, and Lark will ask Wally if he believes in fate.
He will answer that he believes in her—as if she and his destiny are synonymous with each other. Lark will shake her head and ask the question again, changing the phrasing ever-so-slightly. Do you believe in love?
Again, he answers: I believe in you.
Indulge me for a moment. Do you think this was always going to happen? Lark pauses. Do you think we were always going to meet?
It will be storming outside, as it almost always is. Wally presses a kiss to Lark's collarbone, and lightning splits the night in two. Like, in a star-crossed-lovers way?
Is there any other way? Lark will ask, and Wally will think it's a joke, but one look at her expression and he will, almost instantly, realise his mistake. Clucking her tongue, Lark will run her fingers gently along his spine, and for a few moments the answer to her question—to any question, other than her touch—is the last thing on his mind.
