Fall Into Forever by Beth Hyland

need are people who believe in fate and destiny, whether it’s a cutesy pickup line or not. That BS is fine in movies and song lyrics, but in real life, not having the free will to make your own decisions is suffocating, smothering, and really freaky.
    I stop in front of room 116 and reach for the door. “Fate seems to follow you everywhere.”
    His hand gets there first, brushing mine in the process. Even though I pull away quickly, the echo of his touch sends a spark of awareness up my arm.
    “You sound skeptical, like you don’t believe in the inevitability of certain things happening.” He steps aside for me to enter. There’s an alcove and another door that leads into the actual classroom.
    Maybe the guy does have a few manners, but then I remember how he checked out my chest the other night.
    “You mean like being in the right place at the right time?”
    “Yeah, sure. Or the opposite. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And no matter what you do, there’s no fucking way you can change what’s going to happen.” A shadow flickers behind his eyes.
    “That’s an interesting way to look at it. But I don’t believe in fate. If I did, I wouldn’t be here. Fate, if you can call it that, is what we make ourselves through our own actions.”
    His dark expression disappears, replaced by a wide grin that spreads across his face. It takes me by surprise. What did I say?
    “God, that was so fucking cool.”
    I frown. “What was?”
    “You quoted Terminator 2 .”
    “I did? The movie?”
    “Yep.”
    I raise a brow. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s unlikely. I’ve only seen the first one.”
    “You paraphrased it, but that’s one of the themes of the film. Fate isn’t set in stone. We can change our future no matter how impossible we think it might be right now.”
    Change my future. That’s what I’ve been trying to do. It’s the reason I’m here at PSU in the first place. However, considering what happened this weekend, I have my doubts that I’ll ever be able to completely shake my past. Not unless I do something drastic. Like join a convent and move to South America. But even then, it’d probably find a way to haunt my dreams.
    The instructor isn’t up front yet, and people are still standing around talking, so we’ve still got a few more minutes.
    My tongue is as dry as if I’d been chewing on a bath towel. I reach for the water bottle tucked into a pouch on my backpack and take a drink. “And you believe that?”
    He shrugs, a faraway look in his eye. “I don’t know. I guess I hope it’s possible.”
    Me too.
    Changing one’s future does come with a huge price. I know that better than most. If I believed in fate and destiny, I’d be in Lincoln Falls and Chase would still be alive.

    * * *

    Jon

    The photography classroom is one of the smaller ones, with maybe forty or fifty students in the class. Rather than individual desks, there are rows of long tables and chairs like you’d find in one of the chem labs. The prof is walking to the front of the class, so Ivy and I need to find our seats.
    That Terminator quote was so fucking cool, even if she didn’t do it on purpose. I spot a couple of empty seats in the back. She turns toward the front instead, but all I see are single chairs.
    I hesitate and consider sitting separately. She can go up there, I’ll sit back here, and that will be that. When class is over, I’ll gather up my crap and slip out. After a few days, these routines will become habits, and Ivy will just be a cool girl I talked to a couple of times. I do still have her coat, though.
    Don’t let her go.
    She waits as a few students brush past us.
    “Nice talking to you,” she says, throwing a glance at me over her shoulder. That’s when I notice the tattoo on the nape of her neck. It’s a small Chinese character that you wouldn’t see when her hair is down. I didn’t peg her as the type to have ink. I wonder what it means.
    The problem with Ivy is that