the (fabricated) story of my ring: part 8.

{Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here Part 6 here, Part 7 here.}

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe in fate, and those who do not. Nadine believed in the former. She had since she was a little girl. On the morning she was meant to discover whether or not she received the part at her theater, she walked slowly to work. She made her footsteps purposeful, begging the theater to recognize just how much she wanted this part. As she walked, she happened upon a yellow piece of paper. It reminded her of the special kind of paper George had typed on. She imagined him at his dining room table, a furrowed brow and look of concentration overcoming his face.

Nadine had tried and tried to remove George from her every thought, but it was impossible. She picked the paper up and ran into the back of the theater, forgetting about those steps she had taken so purposefully. She stood in the room where the performers got ready, staring at her reflection intently. She felt nosy opening someone's private piece of paper, but she promised herself she would not judge the writer for whatever it was he or she wrote, and opened it slowly. She kept her eyes tightly shut and imagined what might be written. It seemed as though a bit of the light had gone out of her, though, for all she could conjure were grocery and to-do lists.

Upon opening her eyes, she gazed upon familiar script, a note from her beloved. In it, she found everything she had hoped for. An explanation, a way to reach him, George's sweet and concerned words strung into perfectly formulated sentences. She closed her eyes again, certain that she was creating the words from thin air, willing the dust in the room to form the words and the overhead fans to blow them onto the paper. But when she opened her eyes again, the writing was still there. George's writing. How the letter had made it just outside the theater door, she was unaware, but she didn't care one bit. She wondered how it was she had come to deserve this little bit of such good fortune. She hugged the universe in the most delicate way she knew how. She cried tears of happiness. She danced in the dimly lit room. Then, she called George.

Part 9 to follow.