Free Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti Page A

as much as she wants him to.
    I’m trying to ignore these things I see. They’re the kind of truth you can never tell your best friend.

15
    I don’t know where it comes from. But Jason and I have this connection that’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before. We have this way together where everything clicks. It’s so easy to be with him. And when I’m not with him, I can’t wait to see him again.
    He feels like home to me.
    The question is, can you just be friends with a soul mate when you want to be so much more?
    It’s not as if there’s one major thing I can point to and say, “Aha! This is why we’re soul mates!” It’s a lot of little things, all together. Things that have no real meaning to anyone else but us.
    This one time when Jason got coffee from the vending machine, there was something really familiar about the way he drank it. It was like I was watching myself drink coffee because I would do it the same exact way. Not that I ever realized how I drink coffee until he showed me.
    Or a few days ago at lunch, when we suddenly started talking in abbreve. When you talk in abbreve, you can’t just abbreviate any words whatever way you want. There are rules. The weird thing is, I know the rules without ever having learned them. It would be impossible for me to explain these rules to anyone else. But somehow, Jason already knew them.
    I was complaining about my grade on a history paper, and Jason went, “That’s ridic.”
    “Where’d you get that?” I said.
    “What?”
    “Ridic.”
    “Isn’t it common sense?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Oh. Well, I guess I have special abbreve talents then.”
    “You know it’s abbreve!”
    “Who doesn’t know that?”
    “Everyone! I thought I made it up.”
    “I thought I made it up.”
    I have no idea how he knows these things. Like just now, we both scraped off some icing from our pieces of cake at the same time. Then we tapped our forks together and both went, “Cheers.” I thought I was the only one who did cheers! Jason has been here all along, with all of these same ways of being, and I never even knew it.
    Bianca gets up from the Golden Table. She looks over at us. When Bianca looks at us, it’s not like when other people look. Other people look away when you look back at them. Other people have some sort of grasp on boundaries.
    Bianca is not other people.
    I already know she’s coming over. She’s all about the gossip. Even if there’s no gossip, she’ll make some up anyway. It’s so tragic. She wasn’t this bad back when we were sort of friends. I don’t know how Erin can still deal with her.
    “Hey, you guys,” Bianca says. She’s just standing there like it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to come over and talk to us. If we wanted company, we would be sitting at a bigger table with more people at it.
    “Hey,” Jason says.
    Subtext: Why the eff are you bothering us?
    “So, Lani,” Bianca goes. “I was wondering if Erin’s going to camp this summer.”
    Subtext: I needed an excuse to come over here, so I made up this lame one.
    “Why wouldn’t she?” I say.
    Subtext: You know she’s going to camp because she always goes to camp, so why are you asking?
    “I thought she was, but my cousin was thinking about going to camp in Vermont so I thought she could talk to Erin about it.”
    Subtext: Why are you and Jason sitting together?
    I’m like, “You could just ask Erin.”
    Subtext: Lay off.
    “I know, I just thought you might know,” Bianca says. “Well . . . see ya!”
    Jason goes, “What was that?”
    “You don’t want to know.”
    Why can’t people just leave us alone? I see the way they stare. Or in the hall, when Jason walks with me between classes. I had no idea we were so fascinating.
    “This history report is killing me,” Jason goes.
    “You’re still working on that?” Jason’s been complaining about his history report forever. He unfortunately got stuck with the one history