If the Fates Allow

by Rainbow Rowell

If you could only spend Christmas with one person, no one in her family would pick her. (No one in the world would pick her.) Reagan was the person you called when you wanted someone to talk you into leaving your husband. Or when you needed someone to call the bank to straighten out your overdraft fees.

No one called Reagan for comfort. No one called Reagan to offer any. No one ever said, “I’m lonely, could you come by?”—and no one ever came by. Even before this bullshit.

Reagan had never really had a conversation with her grandfather before. They’d always been part of a larger group—always with her grandmother, usually with her parents. They didn’t really have an existing dynamic. So they talked about the things that had brought them together today: Their worry. Their caution. Their firm belief that most people were idiots.

“I kept telling her . . . that if she wanted me to get into heaven, she’d have to deliver me herself.”

“Pfft. Levi’s fine. He’s got a wife and three kids and fifty bison.” She still talked to Levi once a week, even though they broke up in college. (Reagan didn’t let many people into her life—but once she’d gone to the effort, she didn’t like to let go of them.)

(She didn’t need people the way other people needed people, but she still needed . . . something.)