Free Through the Heart by Kate Morgenroth Page A

said it in that same voice he’d used to talk to Jeanette. It was mocking, slick banter. That was all.
    “I have a feeling you’re almost never alone. I think you’ll be fine.”
    And I left.
    Did I come close to escaping fate that Monday afternoon when I walked out of Joe’s Diner?
    You can play “what if?” games until the Resurrection, but how can you escape fate? Maybe you don’t believe in fate. But fate doesn’t require belief. As Timothy said, you’re ruled by it whether you believe in it or not. If it exists. I’d say it’s up to you to decide, but you don’t even need to decide. Just live your life, and when it’s over, then tell me. Do you believe?
     
    THE INVESTIGATION
    STATISTICS
    The Human Side of Homicide reports that currently a quarter of all murderers are women, and their victims are usually someone close.

Timothy

    What Timothy Thought
When Nora Walked Out
     
     
     
     
    I’ll admit it. I was sure she would come back.
    I sat there. I sipped from my water glass. It was barely an inch below the lip, but that waitress came back with the water jug to fill it up. And she bent over to show me her tits. They weren’t bad, not great either, but there was something sexy about the pride she had in showing them.
    I flirted with her and waited for the other one to come back. That’s how I thought of her—as the other one.
    There was no strike of lightning for me. It might have seemed like it, but there wasn’t. I was just bullshitting about fate. I’d been in the habit of talking that way to women for years. They loved it, and it kept me from having to answer questions. They just went off into their dream world; I could see them construct the image right before my eyes. “This is the guy who believes in fate.” “This is the guy who believes in love.” “This might be the guy I’ve been waiting for all my life.” And then they don’t even bother to get to know me. They think they know already, and then they just look for evidence to back it up.
    So at the time I was sure it was just more of my bullshit. But later I looked back and asked myself, why did I get off the highway? And why there? I wasn’t really hungry. I didn’t need gas. I wasn’t in the mood to explore. There was no reason. I just did it. And when I was driving through town, I saw the sign for Starbucks, though it wasn’t a Starbucks, and I just thought I’d get myself a coffee.
    I walked in and there was that girl. I found out later that she was over thirty, but there are some women who are women and some women who are girls. One isn’t better than the other. They’re just different. This one was a girl.
    Anyway, she was just a girl with beautiful hair. I couldn’t really see it well, but I could imagine what it looked like down. It was the kind of hair that when you see it down, it’s almost like seeing the girl undressed.
    I have to admit, it annoyed me that she didn’t even seem to notice me. Oh, I suppose she did notice in a way, but she looked at me like you’d look at something through a window. That was why I asked her to come get a coffee. I wanted to crack the glass. And I thought I had shattered it pretty good when she came running out of the coffee shop after me. It was the kind of thing I was used to. That proved to me she was just an ordinary girl—a girl with beautiful hair and a mysterious look but underneath that obviously the same as all the others.
    So when we got to the diner, I acted with her the way I acted with all women: never awful but just rude enough that they knew exactly what the deal was. Yet they always chose to ignore my clear signals. They saw what they wanted to see.
    Until now.
    This was the first one who watched me, listened, and got it. And walked out. Not because she wasn’t interested. Not because she was playing a game. It was because she understood me.
    She was the only one.

Nora

    What Nora Thought
After She Walked Out
     
     
     
     
    Should I lie and say that after I