These Tangled Strings

By Arra LeBlanc

Tamryn Sealy has been dreaming about Red Week all her life. The moment when she would be tied to her soulmate by the now visible red string on their pinkies. A whole week to learn each other's hearts, to explore the world around them, and finally end the week with a tender kiss so they can break the string and start a life together.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Midnight Reading Publishing
• Release date: Feb 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781989152058

Book preview

These Tangled Strings

by Arra LeBlanc

Midnight Reading Publishing

Published in Canada by Midnight Reading Publishing, Ottawa

LeBlanc, Arra, 1990-, Author.

These Tangled Strings / Arra LeBlanc

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989152-05-8

Copyright © 2019 Arra LeBlanc

This is a work of fiction. All characters and situations are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any re-semblence to actual persons, living or dead, events, locals or businesses is coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduce or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for brief passages quoted in a review.

Cover Design: Valérie Gent

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For Scrah, my inspiration dragon!

Day One

I was the kind of teenager who kept a Red Week book. Sure there was also the wedding book but my main focus was my dream Red Week. It wasn't so much imagining and planning what my fated partner at the end of that red string would look like, be like; that was what other people did. There was no point in dreaming up your ideal soulmate when you had no say in the matter about appearances or personality, which some kids were awfully bitter about. Therefore, I focused my planning on events and other ways to make the best out of the one week that fated couples were granted to spend together when they're first tied.

It had clippings from magazines of ideal outfits that I could wear on our dates, restaurant menus and takeout places where we could eat that offered Red Week discounts, lists of hotels that also offered deals in case we didn't want to stay at each other's apartments or, worst case scenarios, our family's houses. Also included were reviews and summaries of all my favorite movies that I'd want to share with my fated person. Of course, these updated and changed as I grew older - although many animated films stayed because you never grow out of your love for those.

There were also rules. I refused to kiss before Red Week was over. This was an event that had to be right at the end. No kissing to break the string and return to our regularly scheduled lives, none of that. I wanted my Red Week, the whole week, even if things didn't turn out to be fate with this person. I had to give them a chance; give them time to give me a chance. Because that's what I feared most about the string tugging on my finger where others hoped for it - what if it wasn't a match, despite what fate said? Sometimes fate got things wrong and people didn't end up staying together.

I wanted the fairytale.

What I got was Winifred Yung.

Didn't matter if it was from a distance or up close, she appeared to be your stereotypical bad girl dipped in molten punk. The only thing that wasn't sleek about her was the fluffy, purple mohawk atop her head. It wasn't that high but it was full of volume and seemed to be defying gravity without a hint of product making it greasy or stiff.

I was frightened the first time I saw her, all the way on the other side of that red string that was now tying us together. Her lips unsmiling, thick black shades covered her no doubt scowling eyes, and to top it all off she had a cigarette between two fingers on the same hand that donned the red string.

But imagine this: A punk girl wearing a studded leather jacket, high waisted ripped shorts, zombie gauze leggings that matched her zombie theme tank top, boots that could crush someone's testicles, and her name was Winnie.

I couldn't get over how cute she was. I was incredibly intimidated, yes, but all I wanted to do was run my hands through her soft hair. (Spoiler alert: it wasn't defying gravity without the aid or hair product and was therefore not soft.)

At the time, I wasn't wearing my ideal floral summer dress and high heeled pink sandals that I had picked out for optimal Red String attraction. My crochet braids were in desperate need of a re-curl that I had been putting off in favor of school work and because finding a black hairstylist in the area was rather difficult. Plus, I had only bothered to put on a bit of concealer and lip gloss before running out the door to class. Thankfully, in my haste this morning, I did throw on a flattering long sleeved dress with an empire waistline and my dark grey boots to match the midnight blue shade of my dress.

Here's the thing. She was on the other side of the quad, leaning against the railing that stopped students from falling into the outside dining area that was almost never used because it was perpetually winter during the school season; even early autumn had a rough chill to it. I had walked out of my dorm, realized that I'd forgotten my Chemistry textbook, turned back to go and grab it from my room and suddenly I was yanked backwards. The tug nearly had me on my butt from how bad it startled me. Winnie, on the other hand, didn't appear to notice. When I turned to follow the line of red connecting me to another person, she had her cigarette in her hand as though nothing had jerked on it. If it had been me, I would have dropped the cigarette instantly (both from being pulled and from not wanting disgusting nicotine in my mouth or lungs).

She didn't seem to be looking at me and I was rather tempted to try and sneak away before she could see that her hand was tied to someone else from a long distance. But if I had tried that, the string would only shorten and tug us back together - fate wasn't happy if you tried to run from it.

Are you ever going to come over here?

I responded to her call in what I found to be the most appropriate method: complete and utter silence. Several minutes of us standing there, in the quad, with me staring at her, the string, my hand, her cigarette, and repeat.

Finally she figured out that I was mostly catatonic and kicked off the railing, walking toward me on her ball-crushing platform boots. She was steps away from me, close enough that I could get a glimpse of her eyes behind the shades, so naturally I blurted out, Please put out your cigarette! only crammed together from what was probably a dead space bar on the keyboard of my mouth.

She stopped instantly, expression unfaltering as she lifted one foot, balanced easily on the other, and gently stubbed out the end of the half-smoked cigarette on the bottom of her boot. It was almost hot. How nonchalant she was about the whole ordeal, how she managed to not fall over balancing on only one high platform boot, how she placed the rest of the cigarette behind her ear when she was done. Except smoking was gross, so five point deduction.

Thus began our first conversation:

Me: Uh, thank you?

Her: So, I guess I'm staying here for more than a weekend.

Me: You don't go here?

Her: No, I'm visiting my little sister.

Me: Oh.

And back into the awkward silence I went.

She sighed, lifting up her shades and my heart decided it was going to throw itself against the inside of my chest. Her eyes were gorgeous. Such a rich shade of brown that glowed beautifully in the sunlight.

Do you just wanna break the damn thing, then? She raised her hand, the red standing out against the vibrant purple nail polish. She had nice hands. It only now registered how long and slender her fingers were. She could have been a hand model.

Then it hit me.

Wait, what?

She shrugged, I won't miss any classes, you'll get to go back to doing whatever you-

"We can't break the string! You can't do that until the end of the week! It's the rule!"

Her left brow rose into a well defined arch. Did you mother teach you these rules? Because I have news for you-

No, I know there are no formal rules to string breaking. It's my rule. I have guidelines and-

She laughed in a way that was almost a scoff, but it didn't sound mocking or offend me in any way, it just shut me up and perked up my interest. Wait, are you one of those kids who made those dream books about Red Week?

I averted my gaze and hello, heat in my cheeks that answered that question for me.

That's adorable.

The way she sounded almost affectionate made me look back at her face. Sure enough, she was smiling at me. It wasn't a wide, toothy smile. Mostly it