Constant-Alec Benjamin

Fate Unspoken

Once again, days passed as the often do. This time, though, Alec didn't forget her. He texted her the next morning asking her if she wanted to get breakfast together. She asked for a raincheck because the crime scene from last night still gave her a nauseating feeling.

Reyhan and Alec frequently texted. Sometimes there were just a lot of memes on her part, or maybe they'd discuss his music. She told him about her 4 sisters and he told her about his only sister. In between, they'd call too. She liked listening to his voice, that was a given since she enjoyed his music. But when he talked or laughed it was a funny, fuzzy feeling.

Reyhan was way over her head.

Alec wasn't.

Alec was sick of liking women, only to be hurt. Alec was sick of love, and relationships, and the prospect of his past experiences repeating themselves. Alec was not interested in Reyhan, she was just a fun person to be around and slowly growing on him as a friend. 

And as the year went by, and their friendship continued to grow to the point of frequent unannounced visits to each other's homes, late nights rendezvous and everything that two people who are friends do, Reyhan grew painfully aware of this fact.

In the time she had known him Alec had never indicated he liked her, and Reyhan had, she had dropped hints, up until he had gone on a date with a girl because of mutual friend. He was grumbling about not wanting to go because relationships were just not for him and she sat there in his passenger's seat stone faced and then she decided to do what all good friends do.

Back off.

Later that night he called her. 

"You'll never guess what!" He excitedly started the conversation.

Reyhan stared at her reflection in the mirror. She put on a bug smile, one that didn't reach her eyes. 1, 2, 3.

"Never guess what?" She replied with forced enthusiasm.

"It went well! She was great! When she spoke it was the softest voice I've ever heard, and she was so damn kind. I've never met someone who cared for someone as much as she does! I really like her, Reyhan, and I haven't felt this way in so long."

"I'm so glad, Alec. You deserve the world and she sounds like a doll. I hope this works out for the two of you."

And for the most part it did, it was great. Reyhan and Alec met less, and talked less and this beautiful girl was the object of his admiration. And Reyhan was very happy, because she was selfless.

She sat in bed and remembered that time when she was 19. She was visiting a carnival in town. She went with her friends and was pulled into a fortune teller's tent.

The woman was middle-aged but strikingly radiant. She had pointed at Reyhan. "Give me your hand, girl."

Reyhan was shocked but held out her hand nonetheless. The woman rolled back her eyes as her hand grazed Reyhan's palm.

She then shooed out all of Reyhan's friend from the tent. 

"You will fall in love." Reyhan wanted to roll her eyes but she was too polite to do that. "And he won't know, and won't want to know. You will reduce to nothing, amount to nothing in his eyes, and-" The woman searched Reyhan's face and was about to speak when Reyhan got a phone call. She didn't want to hear what this woman had to say any longer. She answered the call and paid the woman, stepping out of the tent herself.

She never saw the curve of the woman's lips as she pocketed Reyhan's future in her brain.

Reyhan thought, maybe this is it. Maybe she was right. In his eyes, I'm a friend.

//

"We broke up."

"What?" Reyhan spat out her coffee to the side.

"That was not the reaction I was expecting." 

They sat in front of one another at a small dainty cafe in downtown LA. It was a quiet Wednesday evening, and Reyhan didn't drink, so a cafe had to do over a bar.

Alec had made it quite clear he wanted to drown his sorrows in alcohol but Reyhan had convinced him into a healthier way of relieving his tension.

"I'm sorry, if you don't mind me asking, what happened?"

"We just didn't feel the same way anymore, I guess. When I was with her, things felt boring. And although us breaking up was mutual, I can't help but be upset."

"That's only natural, Alec. You have the right to be as upset as you'd like."

"I know. Thanks for being here."

"Oh Alec." She grinned, leaning back in her chair and propping her sandal clad feet onto the table. "Haven't you realized by now that I've always been here. I swear I feel like your guardian angel sometimes."

To that he laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound her ears could ever hear.

//

Time continued to pass, and their friendship grew stronger. She helped him with inspiration in his music. He got her mind off of the grotesque crime scenes she had to analyze. 

They were in the car again driving to a restaurant that Alec had spoken great things about.

"How does that song go again?" He asked.

"I think it goes somewhere along the lines of..." She hummed a faintly familiar tune, but he shook his head. 

"That is not how it goes!" He hummed back in response.

"Oh so you're really going to start humming now? I thought we made it clear that you may not use your musical skills to upstage me, that is an unforgivable offense." She declared in her best posh voice that she could possibly muster.

"Oh I am so sorry, your highness, I overstep." He answered as he took a right. "What do you say I pay for dinner and dessert as an apology, my dear lady."

"Yeah, nice try Alec, not gonna happen."

Reyhan had a huge problem with letting someone else pay, there was a time she jumped a counter in order to pay for a meal they had gotten after he had finished a song.

"I just don't understand you sometimes."

She gave him a sad look. "I wish you could."

Alec's heart stopped for a second. When he turned his head to look at her she was staring out the window. Was he being blind to a friend in distress? He felt slightly guilty, she was always there for him. Was he missing something big?

"Hey, are you OK?" He spoke after a while.

"I don't know. I'm just tired."

"Tired of what?"

"Running."