Kismet (fate; destiny)

Ten:

Karlie and Josh had been officially dating for almost two weeks now. They had gone out numerous times ever since their first date to Canada's Wonderland. Josh had taken Karlie out and about in Toronto for lunch, dinner, to the movies and even offered her rides to and from school and work. Basically, Josh was taking up a lot of her time lately. Several times Josh had texted Karlie to come to Tim Horton's and study there, when he was at work.

            Despite all of this, Karlie felt like she didn't have any strong feelings towards Josh. He was a great guy, and Karlie had a lot of fun whenever they were together. But then she always had fun when she was with Cara too. Karlie never found herself missing Josh when they were not together. His texts or calls never caused any butterflies to form in her stomach. Thoughts of him never kept her up at night. His gentle touches on her skin sometimes made her awkward and uncomfortable. In fact, Karlie felt like she had more fun when she was with Cara than when she was with him. She could be herself and be carefree when around her best friend. Karlie let all her guards down with Cara and never hid anything from her. But with Josh, she had to watch what she said or did around him because he would easily get offended and put Karlie down. There were times when she was out with Josh and he would say something so rude, or mean, or sexist, like on their first date, that would make Karlie extremely angry and upset. She would always remind herself that at least he was decent enough to be honest with her and not cheat on her or lie to her. This is what kept Karlie from breaking up with him. Besides, she had never dated before so maybe her expectations were based on all the movies she had watched or the novels she had read, which aren't always very realistic.

            The sound of clapping brought Karlie out of her thoughts. It was a Wednesday morning and she was in her second class of the day – Health Psychology seminar – where each student had to pick a health-related article and present it to the class every week. She was due to present on November 18th so she had a couple of weeks to prepare for her presentation. However, she was not one for public talking so the mere thought of presenting in front of her seminar group terrified her. Nonetheless, Karlie started clapping along with her peers, realizing that the presentation for this week was over. She was usually focused and took good notes during her classes, so she was mad at herself for not paying attention today.

            Karlie's seminar was over fifteen minutes early. She had an hour and fifteen minutes until her next class. She walked over to the café on campus and ordered herself a coffee and a gluten free cookie. Fortunately, she found herself an empty table, with an outlet where she could charge her laptop, which was very rare in the busy café.

            Karlie sat at the table, opened her laptop and checked her school email. She didn't see anything important there. She didn't have any assignments or readings to do either, because she was all caught up. So she decided to read or watch something to kill the time.

Karlie was just trying to distract herself because ever since Alison had told her that she was in St. Louis, Karlie had started missing home a lot. She was especially missing her sisters and her mom. Karlie was very close with all three of her sisters before her parents' split. Three years after the split, Kristine, who at the time was 17, got pregnant, dropped out of high school and moved in with her boyfriend. After Kristine moved out, Karlie became even more close with her two younger sisters because her mom would always either be at work or be stressing out about their financial situation. Karlie was always there for her baby sisters, Kimby and Kariann, to distract them from everything that was going on around them. The twins were only 8-years-old at the time of the split and 11 when Kristine moved out. They were so confused by all the events that were unfolding around them, tearing their lives apart. Every day Karlie blamed herself for robbing her sisters' happiness and their chance at a normal childhood. Kimby and Kariann would never get to live a happy, carefree childhood like Kristine and Karlie had.