“After you, my love.” Cory held open the door to the ice cream parlor and gestured for me to walk through it. I gave him an awkward smile as I thanked him. Love. No, not even love. His love. Just the thought made me giddy with excitement. I was his, but more importantly, he was mine.

We walked up to the counter, hand in hand. Cory turned to me, “What do you want Mel?” 

“Oh uhm..I’ll have a scoop of strawberry ice cream.”

“No way, strawberry’s my favorite flavor too!” 

I smiled. We already had so much in common. I couldn’t believe I had been nervous for this date, and I felt the butterflies in my stomach morph from anxiety to excitement. Of course, we were meant to be. From the moment I laid eyes on him I just knew it. It was bound to happen, fate as you might say. Destiny even. It didn’t matter what I had done, the outcome would be the same either way. It would be the same. It was fated.

I could see the beaming purple lights of the party I had been to a few days prior. After being left in favor of more extroverted friends, I stood near the punch table and watched as the dry ice in the drink cauldrons gave the illusion of magical smoke. I smoothed my plaid skirt, which matched the skirt of my friend who brought me in the first place, and turned my attention to the people dancing. Standing at the edge of the dance floor was Cory, my at the time long-time acquaintance. He was wearing a Batman mask, but I could still tell it was him. He was the tallest of his friends, and his costume didn’t cover his brown curls, nor his charmingly imperfect smile. I could tell by the way he was standing too, formal yet relaxed, that it was him. He was talking to one of his friends. I watched him adjust his mask a few times and then he ran his fingers through his hair. Maybe he could tell I was staring at him. I quickly looked away. It wasn’t too far-fetched to think he might like me back. We made eye contact at least once a week.

“Melanie!”

I turned around to spot an acquaintance of mine, Lucia, sitting at a table. It was decorated with stars and a crystal ball sat on top of it. Lucia, dressed as Cupid, gestured for me to go over to her and with nothing better to do, I obliged. My friends had always remarked that her fortune telling was a scam, and the logical part of my brain knew they were right. Nevertheless, curiosity got the better of me and I made my way to her table. She asked me if I wanted a free love reading, in the spirit of the Halloween full moon as well as her outfit.

“Ok…well there’s this guy I like and…uhm…I wanna know if there’s any chance he might like me too.”

She nodded and started shuffling the cards. After selecting five of them at random, she looked at the cards and then a minute later gave me a solemn look, “It’s a no. He doesn’t like you back. You quite literally got the ‘Lovers’ card as well as the ‘Two of Cups’ in reverse. Typically we like to see those in love readings but reversed means something’s in the way,” she pointed at a card with a spinning wheel, arrow pointing at a mysterious symbol, “and that would be fate. Usually those cards deal with soulmate connections, but this isn’t it. Not a chance, sorry.”

I buried my face in my hands. This couldn’t be true. There had to be a reason why I was so drawn to him. There had to be something more there. I needed there to be something more there, because if not him, who else could it be? “Are you sure? This can’t be right. Redo it, please.” Despite my distrust in the validity of tarot, I found myself begging for a change in the cards.

Lucia shook her head, “No can do. The cards have been dealt, and the stars have spoken.” She laughed to herself and then continued, “I mean I’m just reading the current energy. Energy is always changing so I suppose this doesn’t have to be bad.” She turned over the deck to reveal a card with a crumbling tower on it. “Mhm, the Tower. Change. You’d need a strong change in energy to taunt fate like this.” Lucia continued talking about the spread, but I found my thoughts whirling around in my brain, covering up anything she was saying. Surely this wasn’t my fate, maybe she had read someone else’s.

“I’ll do anything.”

She paused. Her expression became more serious as she leaned in and whispered to me, just loud enough for me to hear over the blaring music of the party, “Write his name on a piece of paper fifty times. Spray it with perfume, wait for it to dry, and then burn it with a floral scented candle. Say what you desire out loud as you do it, at least ten times. You attract what you desire, and if you manifest what you want, you can get it.”

Later that night I felt ridiculous chanting “He will love me back” at midnight in my bathroom. But I felt much less ridiculous the next day when Cory himself casually strolled up to my table at the library, asking for my number. I wasn’t sure what sort of love spell Lucia had given me, but it worked. It…worked. After three years of hoping and dreaming…he had finally asked me out. 

After receiving our ice cream cones we moved to the outdoor seating area to officially begin our date. The Florida heat was surprisingly tame, and there was just a slight warmth as the sun was about to set. Sitting across from him, I couldn’t help but admire how Cory’s brown eyes became illuminated by the golden hour sunlight. He was divine. Our connection was divine.

“So…” Cory began twiddling his thumbs, “how was your day?”

“Um..it was good. Yours?”

“Mine was good.”

I nodded and averted my gaze. There was a minute of silence. I couldn’t tell if it was simply awkward first date energy or if neither of us were good at conversation. I knew I wasn’t very good at talking to people, my friends were all extroverts. I thought Cory was extroverted too, he was always with a group of friends and they’d all laugh at his jokes. He honestly never really seemed to stop talking around his friend from the party. Was I wrong? 

“How did you do on the Gov test?” Cory broke the silence and I felt relief wash over me. It was just because it was the first date surely.

“Oh, I thought it was a little difficult. Government’s not my best subject. I just never found politics interesting. What about you?”

“I love Gov, it’s my favorite class. I really think politics is important, I mean, politics affects our day to day lives. And…” Cory continued. And he continued. I began eating my ice cream and nodded along, pretending to understand what he was talking about. I didn’t know he was one of those people. 

“And one day I hope to maybe even run for president. I dunno for sure though. I mean, would you even wanna be first lady, considering you’re not into politics?” 

I froze. First lady? As in…his wife? I had definitely considered a future with Cory, but now that I was sitting in front of him on our first date, I wasn’t quite considering marriage. When I thought about it really, he was being quite forward for a first date. We hadn’t even talked about our favorite colors yet, and he was thinking about marriage? He had called me his love but surely he couldn’t be in love with me on the first date. That’s not how relationships typically worked.

As the date went on it became increasingly clear that Cory and I did not have a genuine connection. Our goals, passions, desires-- they didn’t align as well as they had in my daydreams. Yet, Cory seemed entirely in love with me. Regardless, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life tied down to him. 

I attempted to break it to him gently, “Cory, listen you’re a great guy. But I’m going to be honest with you…I don’t think this will work. I just don’t think we make a good match.”

Cory’s expression dimmed. With a shaky voice he questioned, “Are you sure? Mel, listen. I really like you. Like a lot. I’ve never felt so crazy about someone and honestly I don’t even know how it happened, but please. I wanna be with you.”

I knew how it happened. And I knew how to end it too. Suddenly his forwardness made sense, and I understood why he was in love with me. I had to break whatever sort of love spell Lucia had given me. 

The next day at school I found Lucia in our Calculus class, aimlessly shuffling her tarot deck. I mustered up the courage to go up to her in the last few minutes of class and begged, “How do you break the spell?”

She gave me a confused look and set the cards on her desk. “Spell? I don’t do spells.”

“Halloween night? Remember? Changing fate…manifesting what I desire…you told me how to change fate!”

Packing up her things she explained, “Woah woah, I never said you could change fate. I said you can change energy. And that is what I taught you to do. Don’t like it? Change it back. Fate is fated for a reason.”

“Okay fine, whatever, how do I change it back?”

Lucia gave me a look and slung her bag over her shoulder, “Good luck, Melanie.” The bell rang and she left. Feeling defeated, I followed soon after. Change energy…whatever. I found Cory waiting at the corner for me, like he promised he would the other day. I noticed his longing gaze turned towards his friends, but then he noticed me. As his expression lit up, my heart sank. I waved to him and winced at his feeble attempts to make small talk. Cory was a great guy, it’s why I liked him in the first place. He just…wasn’t my match. But also, I wasn’t his. Cory didn’t genuinely love me. I forced feelings that didn’t exist, and tried to say it was love. And that’s not the kind of love I wanted. I didn’t want someone who fell in love with me because I wanted him so badly I willed it to happen. No matter how much I had hoped and dreamed he would like me back, it wouldn’t change the fact that Cory was virtually a stranger, and he would never truly love me. The weight of my actions loomed over me as he held out his hand, asking if I wanted to hold it. He deserved someone who would love him for who he was, and he deserved to genuinely fall in love, not to be stuck under a spell his entire life. He deserved someone more than the crazy girl who casted spells to get what she wanted. I needed to fix things.

“Cory, what do you like about me?”

Cory’s eyes widened, and there was silence. After a minute he decided on an answer, “Oh uh..you’re really pretty. Uh…” he trailed off, searching for answers. 

“Cory, it’s okay. We barely know each other. I mean, to be honest we really don’t have anything in common…like whatsoever. You don’t have to force this to work.”

“I love you Mel. I’m not forcing anything!” Cory blinked back tears, and I felt water welling in my own eyes. I knew his feelings for me weren’t genuine, so maybe that made his tears all the more painful.

“No, Cory.” I took a deep breath. “You don’t love me. You are not in love with me.” I looked him directly in the eyes, “You’re a really sweet guy Cory, but you are not in love with me.” He continued staring at me blankly. Once again, almost like when I had manifested his love for me, I articulated, “You are not in love with me.”

Breaking eye contact, Cory frowned. He fiddled with his hoodie strings for a minute and his brows furrowed. Finally looking back at me he nodded. I couldn’t read his expression, but he didn’t seem particularly upset, and there were no more tears in his eyes. The weight had been lifted off my shoulders, only to be dropped straight onto my heart. It wasn’t Cory, so who could it be now?

“Uhm…goodbye Melanie. I’ll see ya around, I guess.” 

Avoiding his empty gaze, I nodded, “See ya.”

Later that day I found myself in the library, reading The Fault in Our Stars. By this point Cory genuinely seemed to have forgotten me, and I hoped that meant the spell, or rather the “energy”, was completely undone. Two voices echoed around my head, annoyingly loud in the school library that was intended for students who wanted peace and quiet. I looked around for the source of the ruckus only to find Cory and his friend sitting at the table, textbooks open and pencils out. They were laughing as if they were the only people in the library. After a moment of silence between the two they smiled. They both looked back to their textbooks and Cory ran his fingers through his hair. Suddenly, I noticed under the table their intertwined hands, and for a second it was like I could see the strings of fate tying them together.