The Red String Of Fate

Darline's Fate

I've been seeing them all my life. The Red Threads.

They connect my mother to my father and my father to my mother. My sister to her boyfriend. I don't see the thread connecting to her. I don't have a thread. 

I don't want one either.

I stare at the window of my classroom. My red hair shined in the sunlight. I saw threads everywhere and it made it hard to listen to whatever was being taught.

I never saw a person without a Red Thread. Except for me. I live the life of playing matchmaker without a match.

It never bothered me. Really. Everyone could be with someone and it wouldn't bother me.

But something was off that day. I didn't know what it was but I could feel it. I look at my hand and see what I saw everyday : no string.

So it isn't me.

I look around and see the usual string connections but one was cut. I feel my heart breaking as I see it was the String that connected my best friend to her love. 

I wanted to tell her that she should run, leave but I don't because I remember the last time I tried to tell someone their beloved wasn't meant for them. I mean, I did that so they wouldn't get hurt but in the end, they didn't listen to me.

"Red," my teacher said. " Can you answer the question?"

I didn't looked panicked. I look over at the board and see the problem I assumed he was talking about.

"15," I replied.

"That's correct." 

He looked stunted as if he was expecting me to answer it incorrectly and make an example out of me. But I wouldn't let him have that satisfaction. 

I smiled back and look back to the window. I then hear the bell dismissing the class.

I look away from the clear glass window and observe the room I was in. It was painted a light blue that reminded me of the sky. The window looked like the lonely cloud. The ground reminded me of green grass. Not the vivid grass but the dead one. The desks looked like little houses on the grass. In a way, we lived in these desks. The desks were the ordinary wooden kind that made it seem like a simple country field. Everything on the ground looked like plants or animals. For example, a water bottle looked like a flower. 

This image is broken by my best friend, Darline.

She's beautiful compared to me. Her golden bouncy curls that fall perfectly with every movement against my stringy, red, flat hair. Her perfectly tanned caramel skin against my lightly tanned skin. She's small and curvy while I might as well be a boy. She has a hazel pair of eyes that sparkle in comparing of my deep brown eyes. My eyes are the only thing I come close to comparing to her in. 

Her outfit was a girly school girl outfit: it was a pastel pink skirt with a black and white collared shirt. She had a light blue cardigan to cover her shoulders. 

My outfit was simple. It was my black leather jacket with a white T-shirt that said "More issues than Vogue" and my dark skinny jeans. My combat boots completed the outfit. 

Let's be honest here: if you had to choose one, you'd choose Darline.

"Come on, Red!" she said in her accent that I never could define.

Red wasn't my name. Everyone called me Red. Not that I mind. My real name was Ash. Red came from my fiery attitude. Then again, Ash was a pretty, dainty girl's name. It was everything I wasn't.