Twisted Destiny

We chilled with Sam’s parents for the next couple of hours until it was about 7 in the evening.

“Do you really need to go?” Sam’s mom asked as she embraced me.

“Amicia wants to work a bit on something for her portfolio.” Sam decided to answer in my place.

“I did promise I would, yes.” I nodded in addition. “I didn’t bring my stuff with me otherwise I’d have loved to stay over for longer.”

“I take it some printer paper and a bunch of old pencils isn’t going to cut it?” Carlos offered with a caring smile.

“Sadly, no.” I chuckled. “I do want to work on this project with everything I got.”

“That does you credit.” Carlos nodded. “Next time bring everything, alright?”

“To be fair to Ami, we didn’t plan to be here for that long to begin with, but next time we will stay the night for sure. If we are allowed to.”

“My daughter and her loved ones are always free to stay at my house. No questions asked” Carlos proudly tapped himself on the chest with a closed fist.

Lucy brought her hand to her mouth and started giggling. “Yes, what my dear husband said, but with slightly less bravado. Not that I mean it any less of course.”

“Maybe we can make some plans to come and sleep over in the next couple of days.” Sam looked at me for a reply.

“Definitely, I would love a bit of a change of pace.” I nodded.

“Oh no, dear husband of mine, we quickly need to stock back up on food before our little lovelings come to visit again.” Lucy mused.

“I will head to the store right away, Mi corazón.”

“You two are unbelievable. Ami will eat herself into a food coma by visiting too often.” Sam rolled her eyes. “And no, Ami, that’s not a good thing.”

“But it would tell your parents that their food is to die for.”

“Nicely put.” Lucy nodded energetically.

Sam took me by my arm and started leading me towards the door. “Come, Ami. Before they completely corrupt your mind.”

“Too late, that already happened when I took a bite of their food for the first time.”

“Mom, Dad, I’ll keep you posted about our plans, alright?” Sam had decided to ignore me.

“See you later, sweethearts. Get home safe!” Lucy followed us to the front door so she could close it behind us while Carlos followed her on the foot.

“And do not forget to give our kind regards to Nikki, Élise and Hilda too.”

“We will!” I smiled as Sam pulled me into the apartment block’s hallway. “Bye bye and thank you for the food!”

Sam’s parents waved us off and we made our way back down onto the street below where we had to decide how exactly we were going to get back home with our bag of leftovers we were meant to give to my sister and Nikki.

We decided to rent a bike for our trip back to completely cyclify our transportation today, but this time Sam did rent a cargobike rather than a normal one. Our bag of food looked a bit small in the big cargohold of the bike but at least we would have no issue at all carrying the food with us, although, that’s what we thought…

Sam looked a bit uncomfortable holding the cargobike in hand as we rolled the bikes to the edge of the street onto the cycle path. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is something wrong with the bike? There’s another one in the rack if we need to switch.”

“Well, no, it’s not that. I have just never ridden a cargo bike before. And now that I feel how heavy it is I am kind of hesitant to ride it.”

“We can switch it out for another bike if you want, we still haven’t started yet.” I already started to push my bike back to the bike rack.

“No, no, no, that won’t do.” Sam denied my proposition. “My pride would be severely hurt if I backed down now. I’m supposed to be the sportsy one. Even grandmas can ride this bike, so I can too.”

“If you are sure you want to do it. Just ride safe.”

“Luckily my girlfriend can heal my booboo if I fall, right?” She laughed.

“That’s true.”

Sam swung her leg over the bike and started peddling away in front of me. While she did look uncomfy at first, her facial expression quickly changed to a confident smug soon afterwards. “Alright, alright, I think I can get used to this.” She did a couple of small slaloms before straightening up again. “It’s less sluggish when you are actually riding it. Not bad.”

“Do you think you could do the same when the cargo hold is full?”

“Hmmm… maybe not immediately, but if I built it up I probably could. Although for the really heavy stuff I’d probably take a three-wheeled cargo bike.”

“That thing will probably ride worse though.”

“Yeah, but you are going to be better balanced. As my geometry teacher used to say, a three-legged chair is always stable.”

“Stable doesn’t mean it can’t tip over though.”

“We will cross that three-legged bridge when we get there.” Sam looked over and gave me a wink. “But for now, let’s get to your sister’s place.”

We arrived at our destination safe and sound, and Sam without bumping into anything with the cargo bike, and made our way to the apartment where we found Hilda had come over while we were away to play poker with Nikki and my sister.

“Welcome home you two!” My sister called us in with a loud voice. It looked like she had just won the round as she scooped in the chips to her side. “What’s in the bag?”

“Food from my parents.” Sam declared, rewarding her with a brilliant smile from my sister.

“Really? I say, those people are way too nice. But I’ll gladly take it.”

“Can I see it?” Hilda asked.

“As long as you don’t take it.” Élise joked.

I brought the bag over to Hilda after which she inspected the contents. “Oh, this does all look incredible. Is this fabada?”

“Yep.” Sam nodded. “Have you eaten it before?”

“Back in the day when I went on holiday in Spain. That’s a pretty long time ago already.” She chuckled nervously and scratched the back of her head. “That must have been right before I went to college.”

“Want to have it?” I offered.

“Doesn’t your sister want it?” Hilda asked, looking back at my sister who was victoriously standing over her poker chips.

Lise gave Hilda a thumbs up and smiled smugly. “I’m already taking your money, you can have the food in return.”

Sam frowned. “Wait, are you really playing for money?”

Nikki rolled her eyes and waved Élise’s comment away with a twirl of her wrist. “Of course not. We just give 1 000 of that fake Syndicate money to each of us and keep track of that.”

“Besides, she already treated us to food at work.” My sister winked. “Although I’m sure that homemade food is going to taste better.”

“What did you get?” I asked.

“Pasta at a local restaurant. It was pretty good but if I take the paella as a standard, Sam’s parent’s food will be a lot better.”

“Nothing can beat my parent’s cooking.” Sam smiled confidently. “I know that for damn sure.”

“Before we continue talking about food…” Nikki started as she shuffled the cards. “How has your day been? I hope you have been able to rest a bit?”

“Yeah, but there is something that you should probably be aware of.” I nodded. “But don’t panic, okay?”

Nikki stopped shaking the cards immediately when I said that. “You saying that already makes me want to panic. Out with it.”

Sam and I proceeded to tell them about what had happened on our way to Sam’s house while my family listened attentively yet calmly at the same time, so luckily nothing came of the panic I had predicted.

“That kind of does sound like a trauma thing, right?” My sister replied with her arms crossed. She was looking at Hilda for an answer.

“Uh… I guess, but you definitely should send that message to our friends beyond the veil if you’ve not done so already.”

I nodded but before I could reply, Nikki asked a question instead. “Have you been seeing anything since then? How are you feeling? Notice anything different?”

I shrugged. “Nothing of the sort. I just feel like me. I think it’s probably because I was tired.”

“Don’t make hope cloud your judgement, Amicia.” Hilda was quick to reply to my comment. “It’s good to not fall into despair, that’s for sure, but don’t go making the mistake that because you want things to be alright, it is by definition going to be. Caution beats taking risks and hallucinations do sound pretty serious.”

“We were planning on sending a message anyway.” My girlfriend laid her hand on my shoulder and nodded affirmatively at my family. “We just wanted to relax for a bit first. Thinking about the worst outcome isn’t very helpful when it comes to that.”

-That’s for sure… A part of me wishes we didn’t confide in them.-