Maybe It Was Fate

“What am I supposed to do for the next five hours?” 

The agent at the ticket counter gave Callie an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, train delays are rare but they do happen. You’re welcome to take a seat somewhere until your train is ready to board.” 

Callie sighed in defeat and grabbed the handle of her wheeled suitcase. “Alright, thank you.” 

She wandered around the train station for a bit until she came upon an empty bench that was away from the crowds of rushing people. Sitting down, she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. 

Taking a train all the way to California hadn’t been the most ideal plan, but Callie was terrified of flying and the drive by car seemed too straining. Unfortunately she hadn’t considered the possibility that one of her trains would get delayed, so now she had nothing to do for the next few hours. Perhaps she could count how many people passed by or stare as the seconds ticked by on the giant clock that hung at the front of the station. 

1st hour 

After about 15 minutes of waiting, Callie rummaged through her purse for any source of entertainment. She fished out a pen and an old receipt and started scribbling down some drawings. Most of them looked like blobs. 

After 30 minutes had passed, Callie felt a presence loom over her and she looked up from her drawing to see that a kind man was smiling at her. 

He was tall with dark brown curly hair. If she had to guess, Callie would put his age at somewhere between 25 and 30.

The man sheepishly held up his luggage and then gestured towards the empty side of the bench that Callie was sitting on. “Do you mind if I sit next to you?” 

Callie nodded and the man plopped down on the bench. He took out a book and started to read. Callie turned her attention back to her drawings, desperately hoping that the 5 hours would be over soon because she was bored out of her mind. 

2nd hour

“So, where are you headed?” 

After half an hour of silence, Callie had almost forgotten about the man sitting next to her. She nearly dropped her pen when she heard his voice directing the question at her. 

She turned towards him and saw that he had put away his book. 

“Sorry if I startled you.” He apologized. “I was just curious. But if you’re not the type who enjoys small talk, then I understand.” 

“No, its alright.” Callie normally wasn’t one to go out of her way to talk to strangers, but she was running out of space on the receipt to draw and she still had quite a few hours of waiting to go. “I’m traveling to Los Angeles.” 

“Woah.” The man raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You going on vacation or something?” 

“Something like that.” Callie shifted in her seat. “I’m going to a family wedding. Where are you headed to?”

“New York.” The man said. “I’m visiting my sister for a few days. Finally decided to take advantage of my unused PTO days and get out of town for a bit.” 

“Huh, so we’re going to completely opposite ends of the country.” Callie remarked. 

“Looks that way.” The man smiled at her. “And we just happened to meet each other halfway in the middle.” 

“What time does your train leave?” Callie asked. 

“6pm. Yours?” 

“It was supposed to leave at 12pm, but it got delayed until 5pm.” 

“Yikes, that sucks.” The man winced. “Looks like you’re gonna be stuck waiting a while.” 

“So will you.” Callie pointed out. 

“Yeah, but unlike you, my train didn’t get delayed. I just wanted to be here early.” 

“Why on earth would you want that?”

The man shrugged. “So I could meet some interesting people while I waited.” 

“Sorry that you got stuck with me then.” Callie laughed. “I’m afraid I’m not that interesting.” 

“You’ve already more interesting than the Uber driver who dropped me off here. He barely said two words to me and they were ‘shut’ and ‘up’.” 

“I can’t imagine why he’d say that to you.” Callie teased. “You don’t seem that talkative.” 

The man held out his hand to her. “I’m Garrett.” 

“I’m Callie.” 

3rd hour 

“So what do you do for work?” Garrett asked. 

“I work as an editor for the local newspaper back home.” 

“Really?” Garrett nodded towards the receipt that she had been drawing on earlier. “I would have thought you were some sort of artist or something.”

“Me? An artist?” Callie pointed at the blobs and laughed. “What could of artist draws like this?” 

Garrett traced one of the blobs with his finger. “An artist who draws abstract art?” 

“Ha, real funny.” Callie folded the receipt up and shoved it back into her purse. “What do you do for work?” 

“I work at an accounting firm. My dad always said I needed to go into a ‘stable career field’.” Garrett’s annoyance was obvious in his voice. 

“What would you have preferred to have done?” Callie asked. 

“Music.” Garrett answered instantly. His cheeks glowed red, as if he had said something that he wasn’t supposed to. “I always love writing songs and composing tracks. I tried starting a band when I was 15 but my dad said I needed to focus on school.” 

“Did you ever write any of your lyrics down?” 

“Yeah, I actually have some of them on my phone, I can pull them up right now and show you—“ Garrett stopped suddenly and quickly backtracked. “I mean, if you’re interested that is. I wouldn’t want to bore you.” 

“I wanna see them.” Callie said. It was cute how flustered and excited Garrett was when he was talking about his music. “We still have 2 more hours to go.”

4th hour 

“So who’s getting married?” 

“Huh?” 

“You said you were going to a family wedding. Who’s getting married?” 

“Oh.” Callie racked her mind as she thought about how much she wanted to reveal to Garrett. 

To her surprise, she had actually really enjoyed talking to him for the last few hours. She didn’t normally like opening up to people, but with Garrett it felt easy. The conversations between them flowed as naturally as if they had known each for years. 

“I’m going to my brother’s wedding.” She finally said. 

“That sounds cool.” Garrett replied. “What flavor do you think the wedding cake is going to—“ 

“I’ve never met my brother before.” Callie blurted out before she could stop herself. “This is actually the first time I’m going to see him. At his wedding.” 

“Oh…wow.” If Garrett was at all taken aback by her outburst, he hid it well. “That sounds intense. I hope you have a good first meeting.” 

“My dad left our family when I was five. He moved to California and met someone else and started a whole new life without ever telling anyone that me or my mom existed.” Callie anxiously clutched her purse to her chest and tried to fight the urge to crawl up into a little ball. “My half brother ended up finding me through a DNA site and he reached out to me a few months ago via Facebook. We’ve texted a few times since then, and he invited me to his wedding.” 

“Holy….wow.” For the first time since she had known him, Garrett was at a loss of words. “How are you handling that?” 

“I’m just so nervous and scared.” Callie confessed. “What if he meets me, and doesn’t like me?” 

“There’s no way that’ll happen, Callie.” Garrett assured her. “I only met you 4 hours ago and I already like you. You’re great.” 

“Thanks.” Callie smiled. “That means a lot.” 

5th hour 

There was one hour left before Callie’s train was set to depart. The two of them left the bench and wandered over to the little convenience store that sold overpriced chips and candy bars. 

The clock continued to tick forward and Callie watched as the minutes that they had left together dwindled. 

They continued to talk about everything and anything under the Sun. She shared all of her hopes and dreams with him, and Garrett made her laugh widely by telling her some crazy stories about how he spent spring break in college. 

Eventually there was only 30 minutes left before her train was set to leave and already they could hear the announcement coming in from the loudspeaker that passengers for the Los Angeles bound train could begin boarding. 

Callie slowly got to her feet and wrapped her hand around her luggage handle. “I guess I should get going now.” 

“Looks like our time is up.” Garrett said. His eyes showed the tiniest hint of disappointment. “You lied to me, you know?” 

“What do you mean?” Callie asked, puzzled. 

“When we first met, you said you weren’t an interesting person.” Garrett smiled warmly. “That’s a lie. You’re amazing.”

“Thanks.” Callie felt her face flush. “You’re not so bad yourself. And thanks for making my trip much more enjoyable.” 

“Maybe it was fate.” Garrett said, his eyes shining bright with awe. He held out a scrap of paper with some numbers scribbled on it. “Give me a call sometime so you can tell me what the wedding was like.”

“I’ll let you know if I catch the bouquet or not.” Callie reached out and took the slip of paper from him. 

As she walked away towards the direction of her train, she turned back around to yell one last thing at him. “Who knows, maybe we’ll run into each other on the way back!”