Chapter One
Fate

“Look, Mom, seriously; it’s no big deal,” I say quickly into my phone, trying to cut my mother off before she got any bright ideas.

I wasn’t entirely too sure why I was having this conversation in the first place.  Mom hardly ever called me, so when I saw her name on the caller ID, I had assumed that it was some sort of emergency.  Perhaps Papa had suffered some sort of injury or something, and I needed to get home immediately.  Maybe something had happened to the house, and she couldn’t get a hold of Papa.  Instead, it just turned out that she wanted to have a little mother/daughter chat or something, which was incredibly weird.

“Yes, I know it’s not,” she said, and I could mentally see her chewing on her lip.  “It’s just that, well, I was just assumed that they wouldn’t be visiting the house that often now that they moved away.”

I rolled my eyes.  My oldest sister, Penelope, had eloped to some fifty-year old millionaire entrepreneur last summer, but to Papa’s dismay.  The guy was fairly loaded, on his way to becoming a billionaire, and it was quite clear that Penny only married him for his money, not his looks.  I mean, good God, the guy was older than our own father!  But the strangest part was the fact that we weren’t exactly hurting for money, either, so none of us exactly had a clue as to why she married him in the first place, other than to create a scandal.  Penny was the sort of girl who liked creating a scandal.

My middle sister, Phoebe, was currently engaged to the most sought after NFL player at the moment.  He, at least, was closer to her age, and Papa was happy about that.  She moved in with him in his excessive estate back when they got engaged.

The problem was that both of them lived entirely too close to our own mansion, such that they were over at least five days a week, for no apparent reason other than boredom, I guess.  Pheobe’s fiancé was away a lot, either at practice or at a game, whereas Penny was just bored of her husband, I suppose.  Sometimes I wondered if they just missed annoying the crap out of me, and took every opportunity to come back and do it.

“Mom, this is Penny and Phoebe we’re talking about,” I sighed.  “When has anything they’ve done ever made any sense?”

I could still see her chewing on her lip. “I suppose you’re right, dear,” she sighed as well.  “It’s nice to have them home, but I was expecting more of an empty nest at this point.  I’m still surprised you’re living at home.”

She wasn’t the only one.  I was always the one trying to get out of the house, but I had made a deal with my father long ago.  He wasn’t so welling to let me go, so when I was about eight, he promised that I would never have to work so long as I was in school on the condition that I would go to school locally and remain at home rather than live in the dorms.  At the time, I couldn’t even imagine living away from my parents, so I agreed, but I had come to regret the decision.  And every time I’d look at a school across the country, or even in a different city (I had figured that would be ideal, such that I’d be away from home, but still close enough that I could visit if the mode struck me), he’d remind me of my promise.

And while I doubted Papa would make me work, I felt duty bound to follow through with it.

Mom, though, didn’t seem to mind that her youngest was still living at home despite going to college.  After all, I was her baby, and she claimed she’d feel ‘too old’ if all her daughters were out of house.  Papa tended to tell her that she was a little too dramatic on the subject, and I felt a little bad that I agreed with him rather than her.  One thing my mother was not was old.

I gave my watch a quick glance out of habit.  “Oh, I’ve got to go,” I told Mom hastily.  “I’ve got class in about fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, of course, dear,” Mom said understandingly.  I think she just wanted someone intelligent to talk to, which was why she called me during one of my short lived breaks between classes.  At least she chose then to call rather than when I was actually in class.  “Have fun, and I suppose I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Of course,” I said, giving her a quick good-bye and hanging up.  I let out a frustrated sigh about nothing.  Typically, Mom related to Penny and Pheobe more than she did me, since all three of them tended to have a silly mindset.  Of course, the difference between my mother and my sisters was that Mom cultivated the mindset, thanks to being raised in an upper class society where being silly was pretty much the only way to survive.  Mom was actually rather smart when she wasn’t trying so hard.  Penny and Phoebe were naturally like that, although I never actually figured out why that was.  After all, for the most part, they had two sensible parents who were just too inexperienced not to spoil them rotten.  Papa blames Mom for their behavior, though, if only half-heartedly.

But it doesn’t exactly explain how I ended up so completely different from my sisters.  I didn’t want to brag and call myself more sensible than my sisters, but the truth of the matter was that we most definitely had different ways of thinking.  They were both social butterflies, going out to party nearly every night and spending hours on the phone with any number of their friends.  It was all about appearances for them: having the right clothes, the right hairstyle, and the right opinions.  For me, it was more about being true to myself.  I preferred spending an evening at home with a good book, or doing something solitary.  I was more comfortable in a small group of people or even by myself if I could manage it. 

And while I did worry a little about looking good, it was more about feeling good than fashion.  Some days I felt like being a slob and wearing jeans and a cute shirt.  Other days I wanted to make an impression.  But that, I liked to believe, came from how I was raised, as well as simply being a girl.  After all, no matter who you are, there were always times when you just wanted to feel beautiful, even if the definition of beauty varied from person to person. 

I paused for a moment, feeling an odd sort of familiar presence watching me.  I turned slightly, wondering if perhaps someone I knew was trying to catch up to me for whatever reason, but I found no one I actually recognized.  A few students wandering the foot path, a few relaxing on the grass or on the benches provided.  A teacher walked by, in a hurry to get lunch or back to class.  Someone sat on a bench closest to me reading a paper.  Nothing really out of the ordinary.

I shook my head, feeling as though I was feeling unnecessarily paranoid.  Get it together, I told myself, hurrying on my way so that I wouldn’t be late for class.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I should major in, since that seemed entirely too defining for someone just starting college.  Some people just knew what they wanted to be, and I was jealous of their dedication.  I, on the other hand, really had no special talents that could go towards a career.  I was told countless times that I should go into psychology, since I seemed to have a natural gift of being knowing how a person was.  While it was a possibility, I wasn’t entirely too sure about the idea.  Knowing how a person was certainly wasn’t the only thing about the profession.  The rest of it might be a little too complicated for me.

So I opted for the deciding a major later course, focusing on my core classes and seeing if something stuck with me in one of those classes.  I wasn’t, by far, the only student who didn’t know what I wanted to do, after all.  I knew several in my classes who were still deciding.

Funnily enough, though, the class I was heading to was in fact Psychology, one of the classes we were required to take.  I had thought about holding off taking it, but I figured I’d see what all the fuss was about.  And while I did enjoy the class itself – learning about the different mental diseases and what not – I figured I would reserve judgment for when I was finished going through all my core classes.  After all, I might enjoy underwater basket weaving better.

I think most people thought I’d be good at Psychology because of my name.  While my father hadn’t exactly cared what his first two children were, so long as they came out healthy, he had in fact been hoping that his third child would be a son.  They had decided to stop at three, since that seemed like a good sized family, so I could understand why he was hoping for a boy.  Instead, they found out they were having a girl.  Papa, from what I understand, wasn’t all that disappointed in the fact, but since he couldn’t use the name he picked out for his son, he decided that he was going to name his last daughter after his favorite myth. 

“Perhaps she’ll end up like her namesake,” he’d tell my mother.  “A bright, intelligent young woman who’s not afraid to stand up to what she believes in.”

“You do realize that she did all those tasks for a boy, right?” Mom would say.  “I’m not sure how independent that would make her.”

But he would just wave her off, reminding her that my name meant ‘Soul’ or ‘Mind’ in his native tongue, and wouldn’t waver.  And since Mom was keen on giving her daughters common names from his native land, she was quite content on naming me Psyche.

Unfortunately, no one really anticipated how made fun of I would become thanks to my name.  Penelope and Phoebe were common enough that no one batter an eye on their names.  No one was named Psyche, at least where I was from.  So the bolder kids would tease me about it, and I just naturally become indifferent about it.

But still, being named Psyche apparently means that I’m required to go into Psychology.  I personally think it’s ridiculous; why would anyone in their right mind go to a Psychiatrist named Psyche?  That’s like a blacksmith named Smith, or an astronomer named Star.  Just because I have a similar name doesn’t mean that I’m qualified for the position.

That didn’t stop my professor from getting excited while reading off my name the first day of class, nor from calling on me nearly every class because he seemed to think I had all the answers.  It probably didn’t help that I actually did the reading – mostly out of boredom and getting away from my sisters than anything else – and did know the answers.  I would probably start giving wrong answers if it wasn’t again my moral code.

I did wish I wasn’t such a good student and teacher’s pet at times.  I always sat right up front – not for any other reason than so I could see the board and not having to look around some jerk who was taller than me and sitting in front of me – and I always did the work, and always had all the answers.  Not like I would volunteer the fact.  I always kept my hand down, and for the most part, I was able to remain invisible in most of my classes.

The most attention I would get was usually from my name.  Psyche was uncommon enough, sure, but it was my father’s name that most people were interested in.  “Psyche Karalis?” my classmates would mutter was soon as role was called on the first day.  “As in the Psyche Karalis?  You’re the daughter of Nik Karalis?”

In previous years, this didn’t bother me so much, because I had gone to school with the same people nearly all my life.  We’d get the random new kid who’d get excited, but I could deal with one or two people at a time.  They all knew me, and all knew I basically liked to keep to myself, ignoring my fame.  In college, though, it was a little bit of a shock.  They all wanted to know me and be my friend, and be study partners with me.  It was a little unnerving, and hard to find people who wanted to be friends with me because I was simply who I was, not because of my family name.  I had hoped to find someone like that with all the people here, but I had yet to find anyone.

I had learned to sit down and busy myself setting up for class so no one would talk to me.  I would check my phone for messages – only a handful of people would – and just in general act like I had no time for conversation until class started.  And then I’d be one of the first out the door.  It wasn’t ideal, but Papa had warned me that this was how real life truly was.

And I would, naturally, ask him why he would even consider starting up his entirely too successful electronics empire, to which he would shrug and admit sheepishly that he just liked tinkering too much as a youth not to.

I couldn’t blame him.  I’d see the way he worked on a new project.  Watching him get that excited about it was enough to go through all this crap of him being famous, and us being celebrities because of it.

Not like my sisters really care.  After all, they revel in the attention.  Phoebe especially loves seeing her picture in name in the tabloids.  Penny was rather indifferent to it, but I did notice she tended to go out of her way at times just to get the paparazzi to snap a picture of her when she spotted them.  The difference between my sisters was mostly that Phoebe went out of her way to make sure the paparazzi was around whenever she did anything, whereas Penny tended to act like she didn’t care one way or another.  But we all knew she totally did.

It was sort of strange that my paranoid feeling sort of came back during class.  I suppose was nearly because I had started to daydream a bit.  It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence – I doubt I was the only one to allow my mind to wander a bit whenever the professor hit upon a dry and boring bit of lecture, no matter what they thought of the subject.  But I swear to God, it felt like someone was watching me, even within the classroom.  I knew people stared at me, daydreaming themselves about me being their BFF or their girlfriend or some such nonsense, it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to people staring. 

But this felt different, somehow.  This wasn’t the usual eyes boring in to my back.  It was almost a supernatural sort of feeling.  I felt a sort of tinkling sensation in my spine, and while I couldn’t exactly see anyone doing so, I just knew I was being watched somewhere.  It was a little bit unnerving.

However, the strange thing was that I was fairly certain I had felt this sensation before.  In the back of my head, long forgotten, memories of other times I felt this way started to come to surface.  An imaginary friend I used to babble to whenever I felt his presence.  Taking a test and feeling like somehow was bearing down on me.  My high school graduation, noticing someone out of place, but finding him gone when I glanced back.

While most people would feel uneasy about that sort of presence, I never did.  It was a comforting and familiar presence, and while it always made me extremely paranoid after feeling it, I also felt strangely calm.  Sometimes I would feel it when I was preparing for something nerve-wracking, like a class presentation.  And immediately after the feeling faded, I felt confident enough to take on the world.

I could claim it to be my guardian angel if I had anyone close to me pass on.  Both sets of grandparents were still quite in the land of the living, since Mom and Papa got married and started their family and an extremely young age.  The only deaths we had in the family were by some obscure relatives who only knew me from entertainment news articles about my life.  I had no idea what the hell it was, and while it made me a little nervous as I grew older, I always figured that as long as it didn’t hurt me, then I wouldn’t mind anything merely watching me.

And since it had yet to hurt me, I would allow it to watch me.

The feeling had passed as I was leaving class, and I suppose I looked a little unnerved since no one actually approached me and asked if I wanted to do anything after class that day.  Typically, the feeling was a once-in-a-while thing, not twice-in-one-day.  Not like I minded, of course; I was just a little unsure why I felt that presence twice that day.  Maybe I had been imaging it after talking with my mother.  Maybe I was just feeling warm and fuzzy after our talk, know that she disapproved of her daughters’ behavior as much as Papa and I did. 

Maybe I was just lucky, and whoever watched me was just looking out for me more.

Today happened to be my early day, finishing my classes shortly after noon.  Most students preferred taking afternoon classes so they could sleep in, but I was more of a morning person, and liked to have my day over with as early as possible, so I could spend the rest of my day however I wanted.

Usually, I’d just go home and chill out there for the rest of the day, since I didn’t have any sort of social life.  I’d get my homework done, watch a little TV, and catch up on all my favorite books.  But considering Mom’s phone call, I figured it’d probably be best to delay my torment, and simply not go home right away.

The easiest thing to do was to shoot Mom a quick text – she likes to act like she’s an old women not up on technology, but given who her husband was and the fact that it’s gained popularity, she could be as bad as Penny and Phoebe when it came to texting and Facebooking, and the like – so I wouldn’t accidentally have to talk to one of my sisters and give her an easy target.  Mom was fairly understanding as long as I tell her what I was doing.  After all, I was her responsible daughter.

That done, there was really only one place I could go at this point.  Well, two actually, but Papa liked to had advanced warning before I decided to pop in unannounced.  As he explained it, he didn’t want me waiting on him while he was in a meeting, or if he just wasn’t at a point where he could hang out with me.  And there was the issue of one of his Greek clients happening to catch a glance at me and attempting to talk Papa into an arranged marriage.  That didn’t sit too well with him at all.

That left only one other place, the place I wanted to live, but of course couldn’t thanks to the afore mentioned promise – the campus dorms.

Despite the cramped conditions, the dorms seemed like paradise to me.  There, I would never have to deal with the constant teasing from my sisters, and I could sit in peace for once in my life.  I could lock my door and no one would be banging on them, demanding to be let in because they viewed locks doors as a challenge to overcome.  Sure, I’d most likely have all sorts of girls – and possibly boys – vying for my friendship or whatever, but at least I could tell them ‘no’ and pretty much be done with it.

And the best part of living in the dorms could be having my best friend Madeline Douglas.

We’d been best friends since kindergarten, when we were in the same class and somehow managed to bond together.  Neither of us could really remember the event in which we did – I always figured we just sort of gravitated towards each other day after day, and that was pretty much that.  At first, it was just a grade school friendship, and I do remember being excited to go to school just so I would see Maddie.  But then we were placed into separate classes in first grade, and I was so upset that Mom made a point of calling Mrs. Douglas, and arranging a sleepover for the two of us.

Sleepovers were something that Penny and her friends, since she was six years older than me, had, so Maddie and I were so excited about it.  That was pretty much the only time we had a sleepover at my house.  Maddie was lucky enough to be an only child, so it made a lot more sense to just have our sleepovers at her house.  Since I was a rather calm child, her parents never minded.

Maddie’s family was what was considered to be ‘new money’, although technically we were the same.  She was called that merely because her father wasn’t a self-made man – he earned him money through old-fashioned hard work, and they were on the low end up upper class.  Mr. Douglas wanted his children, before they found out Mrs. Douglas was lucky to be able to have the one, to live the life of luxury, which was why he moved them to the area.  Maddie tried very hard to fit in, but she, like me, just wasn’t made to fit in.

That was probably the main reason we got along so well.

Despite the fact that it probably would be a lot easier on the Douglas’ if Maddie did stay at home, she opted for the year of freedom.  She wanted to see what it’d be like living away from home for once, to take care of herself.  Her father believed it to be a typical experience a college student faced, and thus agreed to it, at least for the first year.  It was completely up to her if she wanted to continue the practice later. 

Unfortunately for her, she also wanted to go to the same college I did, so it looked a little foolish of her to be living on the dorms in the same area she grew up in.  But she seemed to like the experience, and it gave me a place to escape to when my home life was getting a little insane.

Maddie was worse than I was in the mornings, shoving as much as she could into them just because she was used to being in school at that time anyway.  Which meant that, even though she had more classes that day than I did, I knew she’d be in her room, already finished for the day, and most likely collapsed on her bed from getting up way too early.  The girl was, sadly, completely insane.

I had been in the dorm so often that the workers at the desk, despite being busy, just handed me the check in sheet without asking why I was there and who I was visiting.  If it wasn’t checked on a daily basis, I’m sure they’d skip that process all together at this point. 

It took Maddie a few moments to answer the door after I started pounding on it.  I always had to laugh at how surprised she was to see me, but that was just typical Maddie.  “Psyche!” she said excitedly and happily, moving to one side to allow me to enter.  “Oh my God, what’re you doing here?”

I shrugged as I slipped off my bag.  “What, I can’t randomly decide to just hang out with my best friend?”

She knew me too well, though.  She never faulted me to preferring to spend time by myself rather than with her.  After all, we Instant Messaged each other all the time, so it wasn’t like I never talked to her or anything.  “Penny and Phoebe at home?”

I sat on her bed, carefully placing the bag she threw on there when she got back on the floor.  “As far as I can.  Mom actually called to complain about it to me.”

“Wow, harsh,” she said, sitting in her computer chair.  Her roommate, a quieter girl with a tendency to go out late at night, was gone, probably out to her first class of the day.  Which worked out well, since we wouldn’t be bothering her.  I had actually only met her a handful of times, since I think she mostly viewed the dorm as a hotel – a place where she could come in and sleep, and that was basically it.

“I know, right?” I said, smiling.  “You know it’s bad when Mom complains about them.  I sort of figured I’d avoid that sort of crap today, and hang out with my best girl.”

“I hate that you need excuses to come hang with me,” she pouted.

“Well, you know this wouldn’t be a problem if Papa would actually have let me go away to college,” I teased.  “Then we’d get sick of each other.”

“Never,” she insisted.  “We’d be like sisters!”

“Aw, Maddie…you already know you’re my favorite sister.  You’re the best kind; the one that actually not related to me.”

She snickered.  “I always feel bad talking about them like that,” she admitted.  “I mean, they’re your sister, Psyche.  They’re family.  Mom always taught me that family was the most important thing.”

“Family’s also what you make it,” I said, leaning back against her bed.  “I mean, I consider you and your parents a part of my family.  And Mom and Papa.  But Penny and Phoebe are merely related to by blood.  That doesn’t mean anything at all.”

She shook her head at me.  “Sometimes I feel you’re so lucky, having sisters.  Even if they are bitchy sort of sisters, at least they’re siblings.”

“If you want them, you can have them.  I’m jealous of you having no siblings.  You don’t know how great you have it not having anyone around to embarrass the hell out of you.”

“I don’t know; Mom and Dad do a good job of that already.”

“But see, that’s their job.  They wouldn’t be raising you right if they didn’t embarrass you.  Penny and Phoebe merely chose to do so with me.  They could be proper sisters and just ignore me, you know.”

She considered this.  “I suppose that’s true,” she allowed.  “Although then your life wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining, don’t you think?”

I stuck my tongue out at her.  “You really have no clue what its like, do you?  It’d be one thing if they were famous for something useful, like being an actress or a model or a sports figure. No, they have to be famous for being famous, and getting into the damn tabloids for stupid shit they do.”

She giggled.  “True enough,” she told me.  “I mean, I suppose it’d be different if they merely embarrassed you.  This is embarrassing themselves in front of the whole country.”

“The whole world even,” I said.  “Yeah, it’d be totally different if they just embarrassed me and the only people who knew about it were local.”

“Tough life, tough life.”

“Shut up; you can escape it whenever you like.  I’m the one stuck with it.”

She grinned at me in a teasing fashion before wisely switching subjects.  “Did you finish that report for History?” she asked me, trying to keep a serious face.

Although neither of us had any idea what we were majoring in, we actually only had a handful of classes together.  This was mostly because she didn’t want to take the same classes I did, since some of our core classes were one of many options.  She took Religion while I took Psychology.  I had no interest in Religion just as she had no interest in Psychology.  But we made sure that classes both decided to take were taken together.  These were my easiest classes, because a lot of the times, we’d sit together and do all our homework together.

I understood the importance of having a study partner; I just didn’t want one who only wanted to be study partners because of my name.

“Sort of,” I admitted.  “I’m kind of dragging my feet on it.”

“I hear you.  History’s never really been your thing, has it?”

I didn’t want to admit that I did have a vague interest in history, although not the history that they liked to teach in schools.  I shared my passion for mythology with my father, who used to tell me the myths as bedtimes stories when I had a difficult time sleeping, or when I had a nightmare.  I knew they were basically just stories – one of the many reasons Penny and Phoebe cared little for them – but when Papa told them, they just seemed to come alive.

But regular mortal history, with the names and the dates and the general crap they want us to learn in school.  I mean, I understand knowing the history of a culture, and not to make the same mistakes, but sometimes, it just seemed utterly pointless.  Sometimes I felt math was a little pointless, but at least that can be used in everyday life.  With history, the most you can do with the knowledge is have a pleasant conversation with someone about it.

Not that I didn’t understand why it was taught, but that was basically why I had no interest in history.  Especially American history.  I had no clue why, but the history of the Ancients caught my attention easily, possibly because of my love for myths. 

I shrugged at Maddie.  “Not all of us can be obsessed with fact like you are,” I teased.  She wasn’t a history buff or anything, but the subject held a little more interest for her than it did for me.

She giggled again.  Maddie was a giggler, the sort most people would deem a blond despite her reddish hair color.  She tended to act that way as well, wanting so desperately to fit in when we were younger.  Of course, she outgrew that phase sometime in high school when she realized that the ‘popular’ girls didn’t really have a better life than she did.  But her energetic and excitable personality was just a part of who she was, and I would never change that about her.

She’d probably actually be a part of that popular crowd, as it’s called, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was ‘new’ money.  The girls at our school tended to be a little excusive – if you weren’t exactly like them in every shape or form, then you didn’t belong with them.  They tried to recruit me time and time again to be a part of their little pack, but I refused every time.  Yes, I was a Karalis, but I didn’t act or think like a Karalis.  I would have fit in regardless, I’ve been told, thanks to my status, but I didn’t want to be part of something that exclusive.  Nor did I want to be expected to be partying every night of the week. 

Besides, I had Maddie, and I’ve always been told that one true friend was worth a thousand fake friends.

But Maddie, like Mom, was extremely smart, so I doubt she’d have fit in long, not unless she dumbed herself down like Mom did.  And Maddie didn’t strike me as the sort of girl who’d change who she was just for someone’s opinion. 

Sometimes her giggling gets annoying, but then she makes up for it by snorting, which gets me laughing every time, and she’ll start laughing, and it’s a vicious cycle sometimes.   But that, of course, was why we were best friends.

“I just wish this assignment was group work,” she said, leaning forward a little.  “Then maybe I could help you a little.  At least point you in the right direction.”

“At least my subject’s not awful,” I admitted.  “I think I just need to sit down and do it at this point.  I’ll be fine, Maddie, even without your help.  Shock of shocks, right?”

“With you?” she asked innocently.  “Nah, you’ll always be fine.  You’ve always been so independent, Psyche.  I’ve always envied that about you.”

I waved her off.  “I still need people, Maddie.  I need you and Papa and Mom.  Don’t sell yourself short.”

“But you could do it if you had to,” she said sadly.  “You’ve always been so good at adapting to situations.  You always know exactly how to get through even the toughest of situations.  I don’t know how, but you always manage to make it though.”

I was about to tell her otherwise when I realized that was actually a little true.  Much like my just knowing what sort of person someone was, me getting out of horrid situations – not like I had gotten into many in my eighteen years of life – just seemed to be a natural gift.  It wasn’t some I could help, but I also didn’t want her envying me for it.

So I decided it was probably best not to tell her about the paranoid feeling I had been feeling pretty much all day.

Chapter Fifteen

Modern Day Cupid Chapter One

Chapter Two