Girl Missing — Tess Gerritsen

The hardest truth I'll eventually learn to accept: fate is a cruel game played by brave souls.

Some say fate plays with time. Right person, wrong time. I say no wrong time. When The One comes along, you freaking make the timing right for him because you're so damn afraid of counting what could have been. Some say fate plays with people. Right time, wrong person. I say love should be heartwarming and terrifying at the same time — if you're not feeling confusion from love, you're already wasting your time on the wrong person.

Fate is, fundamentally, a puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle, to be exact. Once a person comes along with the right piece, nothing — no one else — compares. He fell right in place effortlessly. Everyone struggled; much as they tried to squeeze and fit into my jigsaw puzzle, nobody even came close to 1% of him. And that's how I thought I won the grand lottery in life. The biggest prize. I thought I won the game of love.

I failed to remember that in every game, there are winners. But winners cease to exist if losers don't. In my case, fate will forever be the winner and me, the loser.

(Written 2017)