We Bent Fate

Chapter 20.

I was wrong when I had thought that Martha quoting one of Lila's words would put me at ease. I had thought that by next morning, Martha would give me a call and say, "Hey, Austin. Are you worrying? You better not. I have it all figured out. I am the goddess of destiny."

But my mind did not comply to wait. 

"Maybe she has it all figured out." I told myself repeatedly but my pacing from one corner to the other just did not stop. 

She will be burnt anew, attacked by those who try to douse her but blazed by the smoke of her past, she would bring light in the times that seem the most dark. 

Was it a prophecy too? I should have asked Lila when she said it the first time. 

At this point, if I were to die, then that would have still seemed more sensible. Why Martha? Will she again have to sacrifice herself because of me?  Or will they just take her back to the underworld because bringing a dead back to life is illegal? 

I wish I could read my own documentary to see if this ends with me. If I get to grow old with her by my side. Maybe I can. Martha understood the language when she was flipping a book back and forth.  Maybe I will make her read it to me. Will she read it to me?

It was the only morning when I did not feel sleepy or groggy. It was apparently because I didn't sleep at all. My head was too heavy to clear out to the haze of drowsiness and so now I am wide awake with an emerging migraine cornering up in my head.

When the clock ticked at seven in the morning, I trudged towards the kitchen and poured some lukewarm coffee in my cup. At least this would help me handle my shit, I thought to myself and mentally thanked nature for the existence of coffee and its beautiful toxic elements that had always eased my headache. 

My mind wandered aimlessly around the scraps of yesterday and all the mush my life has turned into lately. It kept going back to the sentence when Martha told me how unchanging of an element is her existence in this world and a question started to brew in my mind with every sip I took of my coffee, drinking it bean to bean.

"How old is she?"

Chloe said that they were as old as that ancient tapestry workshop. And even, Martha, she had said that she had been alive even when my grand parents weren't born. Does that mean that I am dating a girl who is way, way much older than me? She always manages to surprise me somehow!

And, so I asked her just that when she climbed in my car. 

"How old are you?"

"What?" Her face broke into a grin. "How old do I look?" She teased. 

"You look younger than me and like a normal human, yet here we are." I answered and she slapped my bicep. "So tell me."

"I may or may not be, more than two thousand and seven hundred years old." She says, holding a finger beneath her chin as if it is taking a lot of effort for her to think and my mouth hangs open mid air. She smirks at me as her index finger slowly lifts my chin and props my jaw shut.

"No shit!" I say with utter disbelief. 

"Shit." She says, shifting comfortably in her seat with her hands coiling behind the back of her neck. "I read this in a book called 'All you need to know about Moirai' that I found in my personal bookshelf and when I asked Lila about it, she said that the books were written after we were born. It is a biography and just facts" She shrugged like it was normal. 

I shook my head in disbelief.

"But it is different from the documentaries that I was used to read in the workshop, Lila told me." She said, her voice soft in reminiscent. "She says that I am not allowed to read a living's documentary until the day they die. If I do, it brings them the bad omen of death."

"There goes my chance to ask you about my own fate." I wanted to groan out but didn't.

"So are you trying to tell me that I am dating a woman who is older than my dead great grand parents? That is.... horrifying." I admitted and she glared at me, her mouth twitching.

"You are just jealous that I don't age like you mortals." She pouts in a way that makes a small dimple emerge on one of her cheek's. 

"So you will always remain this tiny?" I tease her and she shots a glance at me cutely. 

"Probably." She mewls and an 'awe' escapes my mouth. I leaned onto her but she shoved me away murmuring something I had said before, "I wish I had never met you in my life." she mimicked me in a weird funny voice but I didn't laugh. 

"You know that I don't like it when you push me away and you literally told me to accept your death. You know I can't do that." I whined, confiding my pain in her. 

"Right and being in denial will just solve everything!" She joked and I realized that the coffee I had soaked in was not enough to drain my headache. I groaned loudly. 

"But didn't you say that you can control your destiny?" I asked, my trepidation rising to my mouth like bile. 

"Maybe. I am not sure but I won't give up." She sighed and I sighed with her. "I believe that fate is nothing but what we choose for ourselves. It may not turn out to be in the same way that we expected it to be but it can change still." She said and I remained silent for a few minutes, engraving her words in the depths of my mind. 

"I really admire your optimism. Never lose it." I say, meaning it and she nods. 

I pull up in front of the college campus and she waits a minute as if deciding to say something or not, and then blurts out, "I am going to my parents' place tonight. Will you come?"

"If your sisters don't mind."

"They won't." She winked at me with a smirk on her face and stepped out of the car.