Chapter 246 (1/2)

Blink.

Randidly looked around, and then he froze, because he knew where he was, he knew this memory.

“I’m dying,” Sydney said, looking at him with her usually joyful eyes, now with heavy bags under them.

“Uh…” Randidly stuttered, but the images were already rushing forward. This was months before the System arrived, the day... his friendships began to fall apart.

“I can’t tell Ace. We will graduate in the spring… The doctors say I have a year at least, depending on how the cancer responds to the treatment. I just need you to cover for me. Drive me to my appointments. Keep Ace distracted…”

“I-”

“Please.” Sydney implored, leaning forward, her hair swung down from the place she had tucked it behind her ears to frame her face. “There’s no one else I can ask. No one else I can trust. You are...we are….”

“...connected…” Randidly whispered. He remembered when he had really been here, when she had said that to him. How much it had made his heart swell with joy. But then how, the more he thought about it, how much it had destroyed him in the coming months.

Slowly, over time, Randidly had realized that the “connection” was only a sort of weight that Sydney couldn’t shake. How, the more moments they discovered in their past were in common, the more it made Sydney tired and sad. How his existence was a necessary evil. Even through the months of chemotherapy treatment, as her condition stabilized, and then slowly frayed away at the edges, as Ace and Tessa grew resentful and suspicious, he could sense how much even Sydney hated she needed to use him for this.

“...Yes, connected.” Sydney said, her eyes glowing strangely as she looked at him. “That’s exactly what I was going to say. How did you-”

“No, I reject.” Randidly said firming, his face twisting with fury. “All of this… this whole mirage… I was weak and let this happen once, but not again. I REJECT.”

A ripple spread outwards from Randidly shaking the world. But this illusion was much stronger than the previous ones, perhaps due to the fact that it led to one of the deepest wounds on his heart, or perhaps he was approaching the innermost rings. But the increase in strength was a big thing.

Just as Randidly was preparing to lash out even further with Battle Intent, ripping the very fabric of the world, Sydney said something that she never did in the past.

“Are you… refusing?”

Randidly paused, a fresh influx of confusion muting his fury for a second. Without any real understanding of what was going on, Randidly simply looked at Sydney, taking in her short hair, her bright eyes, and the strange look of helplessness on her face.

“I get it. I’ve been a bitch.” Sydney said bitterly. “I always push you away. But that’s because…. because… It’s always just been too easy between us, right? Don’t you hate how expected it was? Born in the same hospital, on the same day, your mother cheated with my father, and both marriages ended… we were tied by fate.”

Sydney’s expression began to grow more heated. “I hate that word. Fate. I’d kill myself to break that word if I thought it would break me away. But fate…. always pulls me back. Now… you are rejecting me?”

A tear ran down her cheek, even while she looked, her face scrunched up in frustration and fury and years of pent of tension.

But then her expression broke. “I should be more happy, I guess. I never expected this in 1000 years. We would always move closer, I thought, if I let us. To have you say no… it should make me happy. I’m surprised, and for the first time it seems like the fate that pulled us together is fraying. That’s good right…? But I just feel… so profoundly cold.”

Randidly just looked at her. His anger dying away. This was a conversation he had never had with her in the past. He had always suspected that she had been avoiding him for some reason, teasing him and mocking him, ignoring him, even while she dated his best friend. He had also known that they had gone to the same places as children but…

Being born in the same hospital, on the same day? And his parents marriage… his mother had cheated on his father? And not vice versa? With her father…?

It felt so distant, now. But the small child inside of Randidly froze and began to tremble. If that was true, then his dad..