Fate

Fate

I never understood the term wallflower. I know it refers to a person who is always apart from the crowd. But if a vine grows up a wall and flowers, wouldn’t it have lots of blossoms?

These thoughts drifted through my head as I stood near the door of the gym, by myself, watching everyone else at the school dance. I stood alone, trying not to look alone, wishing I could go home. Unfortunately Andrea’s dad was our ride, and Andrea was obviously not ready to leave.

As I stood there, pretending I was making a call on my phone so I didn’t look so pathetic, something caught my eye. It was a small green leaf near the wall. I walked over because it was pretty odd. This was a gym in a high school, where would a leaf come from? As I got up to it I realized it was construction paper. Of course, part of the decorations, but it had looked so real. I picked it up.

Looking around at the decorations now I saw that there were leaves everywhere. Some garden theme, but most of them were ragged, not like this one.

“You found my leaf” a voice said, making me jump. It was Henry Peck. I only knew him by name. “It fell off the wall.” He gestured to a beautiful tree near the bleachers.

He wasn’t an art major then, but looking at the tree, I knew he would be an artist. I was majoring in economics.

“Oh, here,” I handed it back to him, and walked away. I had plans, even then, to be rich. An artist was not the way to go.

Ten years later, he just sold another painting for several million. I work in a grocery store... Go figure.