Max is by his locker, slowly putting his books inside.

Tess walks up to him. “Max,” she calls out.

“Tess,” Max whips his head around, shifting uncomfortable, suspicious eyes on her.

Tess looks unsure, as if she is struggling with something. “Max, we need to talk,” she tells him.

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” he responds.

That gets her back up. Words tumble out of her, like a rote program.

"Max, you know you can't fight it. You can't fight destiny." As soon as the words leave her mouth, she realizes how false and unconvincing they sound.

The words no longer carry the heat of conviction. They are merely defensive reactions to Max’s sheer stubbornness, to his refusal to discuss anything even remotely alien to him.

“I don’t know what destiny really means,” Max replies passionately. “All I know is that Liz and I … we’re what makes sense. We belong together,” Max states, then walks away from her.

"We're what makes sense." Max’s words echo in her ears.

Images from the previous night flash before her eyes. Two virtual strangers meeting, laughing, talking and then forging a strange connection that was not pre-ordained. That was what made sense. Not destiny.

Destiny used to be her ally, something she could count on, something she knew was THERE. But that was also the problem with destiny. Everything was already written, pre-planned, pre-determined.

There was no chance for a gradual discovery, for a bond to form. No chance of spontaneity or fun. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t even alive. It was the past, coming to orchestrate the future and cut out the present.

But surely one night and one dream couldn’t wipe our sixteen years of being told what her destiny was, sixteen years of knowing what course her life would take. Or could it?

“Yes, it could. And it did,” she thinks to herself. Relief floods her as it dawns on her that for the first time in her life, she could control her future. And she wants that future to include Alex.

Isabel was going to have a fight on her hands.

Tess starts to strolls down the long corridor to search for Alex. A surge of jealousy fills her as she sees Isabel pulling him into the eraser room. She quickly closes the gap.

***

Feeling threatened by the dream Alex had of Tess and the more-than-friendly rapport she witnessed between them earlier, Isabel decides to take matters into her own hands.

“Alex, I’ve been thinking. You know how I said we should take things slow?” Isabel tells Alex. “The word glacial comes to mind,” Alex quips. “Maybe it’s time to melt the ice,” Isabel tells him as she leans in closer.

“Whoa! Ah, this is … ah …” Alex stammers a little. The thought of him and Isabel in the eraser room was surreal, something he dreamed of but never thought would happen.

Yet the moment seems anti-climatic. Perhaps because the image of a short, blonde elf intrudes into his thoughts. An image of her mock-punching him, smiling at him, looking at him with soft yearning, leaning up against him, listening to his heartbeat and looking at him with wonder.

He pulls back from Isabel, inching his body against the wall. She is pressing against him, looking like she wants to kiss him.

Tess opens the door just as Isabel is about to kiss Alex. “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something?” Tess asks with a wide-eyed, innocent look.

Isabel looks at Tess with her patented goddess glare. “Yes, you are,” she tells her rudely. She flicks her eyes towards the door, a not-so-subtle way asking Tess to leave.

“Uh, hi, Tess,” Alex pipes in. “Isabel and I were just hanging out.”

“Hanging out? Is that what you call this?” Isabel fumes.

“No,” Alex hovers in conflict. “Isabel is my light, my dream, someone who has always consumed my thoughts,” Alex thinks to himself.

But Tess is real, someone who seems more tangible than any dream. Someone who makes him feel connected.

He looks at both women. “Isabel, I …I have to go,” he pushes past her and Tess.

“Wait, Alex,” Isabel calls out to him, trying to delay his departure. Alex strides away quickly, locking his fingers together and putting them across the back of his head.

Tess starts after Alex. “Stay away from him,” Isabel gives the same warning to Tess that she doled out to Alex the day before.

Tess merely raises her eyebrows. And then leaves to catch up with Alex.