"Are you saying that you are not doing that anymore?" She asked.
"I'm trying not to." I said. "It's cost me a lot. I told you that Nina and I were no longer talking to each other."
"You did." She nodded. "I figured it had something to do with your extracurricular activities. I tried to tell you once that she loved you. And I was pretty sure that you loved her too. You didn't listen."
"I know. And you were right on both counts." I said. "Unfortunately I waited too long to realize it. I screwed around until Nina had her eyes opened to what I was like. She basically told me to fuck off and stay away from her. She won't even talk to me now."
"I'm sorry." Tracy said honestly. "I like Nina. I thought you two were perfect together. I still think that even though I now know you're actually seventeen years older than she is. Maybe she'll come around."
"Maybe." I said. "Or maybe not. In any case, Nina is part of why I called you at the bookstore with that warning. Nina and Mike and some other things have made me realize that fate has a pattern to it. A pattern that it keeps trying to put things and people into. You are part of what has fallen out of pattern."
"Because I didn't die on graduation night?" She asked slowly.
"Exactly." I nodded. "In a way I'm glad that these other things have happened. They allowed me to see what was going on, that fate was attempting to re-align things. When I saw that, I was able to give you that second warning and you were able to heed it when fate took a second shot at you."
She shuddered. "I still get the creeps when I think about how close I was to getting in that car with Darren that night. Jesus. What other things have you seen as far as these patterns go? Maybe if I know how strong this thing is…"
"Okay." I said. "There's you first of all. As you know, in my previous life you died on graduation night. In this life I prevented that. But I also knew Nina in my previous life, in school of course but also years later, and that Nina was not a pleasant person at all."
"What do you mean?" Tracy asked.
"In my first life Nina was a doctor in one of the emergency rooms. And she was a total bitch. She was the shining example of a big-time inferiority complex. If anybody did anything good in front of her, she would find a way to criticize it. If anyone did anything wrong, she would jump down their throats. She was a miserable person and it was quite plain to me why she was a miserable person."
"Because of the way she was treated in school." Tracy said.
I looked at her, smiling. "You know Tracy, you're pretty smart for a youngster."
She giggled nervously. "This is so weird." She commented. "Trying to adjust myself from thinking about you as my 'little' brother. You've got seventeen years on me now."
I snorted. "Older doesn't necessarily mean wiser Tracy. Believe me. Anyway, when I came back I decided to eat in the cafeteria one day and I saw Nina sitting in there alone. That brought back memories of how bitchy she was as a doctor and led to the speculation as to its cause. So I, thinking I was the great superhero, the fixer of oppressed people everywhere, decided to befriend her and maybe change her personality a little."
"And she fell in love with you." Tracy said.
"Yes." I nodded. "At first everything looked rosy. Nina came out of her shell, she started to socialize with people, and she lost a lot of her shyness. I figured that there was no way she could turn into a bitch after all of that. But I was wrong. She finally caught me with a girl and that opened her eyes to what I was like. The next school day, the very next one, she was back in the cafeteria, eating alone, being uncommunicative, being the Nina that she'd been before I came along. I have no doubt in my mind that if things continue the way they are going, she's going to end up a bitchy doctor married to a prick neurosurgeon, making life miserable for everyone around her but especially for herself. Though the catalyst for this was of my making I was frightened to the core by the absurd ease with which she slipped right back into the pattern."
"But Bill," Tracy protested. "It's only natural that she would react that way after catching you with another girl. As a fellow girl I can understand exactly how she would feel when the guy she loves turns out to be a…"
"An asshole?" I suggested.
"Well, yeah." She said. "But anyway, just because of that, you can't decide that fate is trying to realign itself."
"You're right Tracy." I said. "But that's not the only thing."
I told her about Beirut and the bombing and, most importantly, of the 240 casualties in both timelines. I told her about Mike and about his fate in the previous timeline and what had happened to him in this one; how he kept trying to slip back into his pattern.
"He was smoking pot at the fire station?" She asked, seeing instantly the ramifications of that.
"Yes." I nodded. "Marijuana. The same thing that destroyed his career in my first life tried to destroy it in this one. The coincidence of that struck me as a little bit more than coincidental."
"Jesus." She said, shaking her head. "This is scary Bill."
"I know." I told her. "But there's hope I think. Quite a bit of it."
"What do you mean?"
"First of all, when Mike got busted with the pot and the counselor signed him up for independent study once more, I went and saw the counselor."
"You did?"
"I intervened on Mike's part by talking plainly to the counselor, talking as one adult to another, something I don't like to do too much these days since it makes me feel kind of exposed. But anyway, she listened to me. She got Mike his position back at ROP and at this moment he's back in the running. I was able to pull him back out of his pattern again after he drifted back into it. Now it remains to be seen whether or not he'll go back into his old ways. I certainly can not discount that possibility, but it looks to me like he might have learned his lesson, that he might be all right."
"That was nice of you Bill." Tracy said. "Do you really think he'll turn out okay?"
"I hope so." I said. "I've done all I can do for him and I can only hope that fate or his own personality doesn't fuck him again. It's pretty much up to him." I took a deep breath. "But there's another reason why I think fate can be thwarted."
"What's that?" She asked.
I looked up at the ceiling for a second and sighed. So far Tracy had taken all I'd said remarkably well and had been reasonably unjudgmental. But I didn't know how she was going to react to this one.
"Anita." I said softly.
Tracy looked at me puzzled. "Anita? What does she have to do with anything?"
I swallowed nervously. "In my previous life Anita met a man shortly before your graduation. By the time I left for college she had married him and moved away. She hasn't done that in this reality, or at least she hasn't begun that relationship."
"I don't understand." Tracy said. "Why hasn't she?"
"Because of me." I said.
"You?" Tracy asked. "What do you…" She stopped suddenly, staring at me in horror. "Oh my God." She whispered. "You haven't been… sleeping with Anita have you?"
I nodded shamefully.
"Anita?" Tracy repeated in disbelief. "You've been fucking Anita? Our neighbor?"