String of Fate

Chapter One Hundred

My life wasn't going to be the life that I had thought it would be. I thought that my string would appear on my sixteenth birthday, and then I would meet that person and spend the rest of my life with them. It wasn't going completely to plan. It was quite a bit far from the plan.

I remembered that my string hadn't even appeared on my sixteenth birthday. I was the oldest on in my relationship. I hadn't been expecting it, and I was hoping that it wouldn't be too long until my string appeared. I guess that I was lucky that I only had to wait two weeks until my string appeared between me and my best friend.

I had been so happy, imagining my future with Harvey, the two of us starting by graduating together. Then, we would study together in college. After that, we would get married, but that wouldn't be for a couple of years. Once we were married, we could start our family. I wanted two children, hopefully a boy and a girl, but I would be happy with two healthy children.

Harvey had crushed those dreams when he had found out that I was at the end of his string. He had sat me down on his birthday and explained his situation to me. It turned out that his parents had already agreed that he should marry the daughter of another business owner in the area to join the businesses together. It meant that there was no way that Harvey and I could ever be together.

It had taken me a few days to digest the information, and I had avoided Harvey for the whole time. I'd needed to think over everything. I wasn't going to have the happily ever after that I had wanted, but there was nothing that I could do about it since it was out of my control. I just had to live with it.

It had then taken me another two days to actually decide that I was going to continue to being friends with Harvey for as long as I could, even if it was going to upset me to see him every day but yet not be able to be with him. I guessed that it was just something that I was going to have to get used to. All I knew was that I didn't want to lose my best friend.

Six months before the wedding, which was also just after Harvey's twenty fourth birthday, he met with Phoebe for the first time. I wasn't there for that, but we met up for a movie night after the afternoon tea and Harvey told me a bit about his fiancé. He thought that she was a lovely woman and she wasn't the worst person that he could be stuck with.

He also admitted that he didn't want to marry her. I'd been surprised when he had told me, but he just shrugged when I had looked at him. He'd explained that he was never going to be truly happy with her because he was destined to be with me. He wanted to run away with me, but there were no way we would be able to do that, no matter how much I wanted to.

I'd managed to talk him into staying, and going through with the wedding even though it would break my heart to see him go through with it. There was no one else who could take his place within his family since he was an only child. He had a couple of cousins, but there was no way that his father would be happy with this happening.

I met Phoebe a couple of days later when Harvey invited her out for a meal with his cousin. She was a great girl, and I knew that I would quickly become friends with her even though she was marrying the man I was in love with. Still, he could be happy with her even though he was never going to be falling in love with her. She was extremely fun to hang out with, and Phoebe and Harvey would look extremely good together.

It was like a slap to the face when she asked me a week later, on our fourth meeting, if I would be her maid of honour. She said that she had always been home schooled and had never had any friends, plus both her parents were only children so there were no cousins that she could ask. I agreed, telling her that I was surprised that she had asked because of the situation.

It was only when she had seemed confused that I realised that Harvey hadn't told her that I was at the end of his string. She had been mortified when she realised what she had asked, having to sit down in the chair in the wedding gown store. Her mother had tried to calm her down but Phoebe seemed like it was a disaster. I told her calmly that I didn't mind since it had taken me eight years to get used to the idea. I managed to convince her that it wouldn't be weird since I was her friend and nothing could happen between myself and Harvey.