Swipe of Fate

Chapter 3

I am so appreciative of all the comments and reads I've already gotten for this story. As promised, here is chapter three. This is when it starts to get complicated in Ava and Ethan's back story... Are we all much more twisted than we appear? Read below:

The sun shone down upon us the following Sunday, a day in which we brought our unbelievably cute and unoriginal date idea to life. 

I traveled a bit outside of my comfort zone to the lake that lied on the outskirts of his 'bumfuck rural Virginia town.' Ethan said he had the burgers; I brought the cookies.

Immediately when I arrived to the lake's park, he jumped out of the woods, nearly out of nowhere and into my car. "Hey stranger," Ethan said. He looked as dashing as when I saw him the first time.

"Wow, you really came out of nowhere, Ethan." The suddenness had me off my game, and I began overthinking everything I said.

"Yeah, I have a habit of doing that in people's lives." He chuckled. "Are you ready for the best picnic of your young life, Ava?"

"I suppose." I peered at him as I found a parking spot away from all the other cars. "What makes this picnic the best?" "Well, you're with me, aren't you?"

We held hands again as we walked to the picnic area. Young families and fishermen scattered around us at a distance, making me feel just safe enough to be in the relative wilderness with a stranger I had met only once before. A very cute stranger.

We sat at a picnic table and found ourselves putting our heads close to each other, laughing immaturely at the passing fisherman's exposed butt crack and theorizing about if any of these families were really happy. 

We, both pessimists, suspected only one of the three families could be happy, and what did that even mean?

"Do you have a happy family?" 

I was surprised Ethan was equally as jaded as me about the probability of a young family's happiness. I suspected maybe he was like me, a product and survivor of a disastrous pairing, one that led to screaming and fighting every day in my household. 

I never felt safe. I wished every day for them to get a divorce, and once they did, 13 years too late after I had already internalized the trauma of having a broken and toxic family, I was overjoyed. 

But the wounds were still there. They hadn't fully healed. I still hated when my parents tried to hug me, and I hated it even more when they put me in the middle of the feuds that couldn't be ended with just a divorce settlement.

"Oh, Ava." Ethan stared just above my head, his eyes spaced out and an awkward smile at his lips. "That's a story for another day. When we both get incredibly wasted and talk about our fucked up childhoods. Maybe our third date?"

I squeezed his hand to show I understood the burden of holding your fucked up childhood memories and having to carry them with you, always being asked by new people why you didn't rejoice each Mother's and Father's Day.

"That sounds like a plan to me. But how did you know I have a fucked up childhood?"

"Unhappy families are so common nowadays. It's no longer a defining trait you can blame your bad decisions on in this day and age." 

He shook his head like this fact was a travesty. 

"But still, I can see it in your eyes when you mentioned your mother wanting you to go to that concert with her. There's some reluctant sadness, and then like that, it's gone." 

Ethan squeezed my hand back.

"Well, you know what they say. 'All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'" I incorrectly quoted Tolstoy.