It should’ve been a perfect day, it wasn’t. the sun wasn’t out, it was quite cloudy , the ground was still a little damp from last nights rain and though the kids absolutely did not mind or even notice , the adults definitely did. She was still drained from last night having barely put her self together- not even showering, before being dragged to the park by her little brother. He was frustrated, the weather matching his mood as he struggled to understand why this annoying client of his could not just agree to the very fair terms he had laid out so the deal could be done with. it was only 2pm but you would have thought it was half past 6 with the way the still chilly february air seemed to match the energy of these two. What seemed like an ordinary day was, in fact, the first in a series of moments that would quietly pull them closer, until their lives were forever intertwined.

She was Camille. He was Nico, short for Nicholas of course.

Camille did not want to be there, at Roving Hills park that is. she should have still been at her friend, Nadine’s place where she had crashed after a 5 hour long protest at Millenium Park, her and ‘the gang’ which is what she called them, had headed back at around 9pm after what they deemed a successful protest. it was rowdy as usual a but they had gotten some insider information that some their demands would be considered and systems put in place to combat of at least drastically reduce the amount of cases of work place harrasment or in general, gender - based violence especially towards females.

Camille saw herself as a good person, she had fully accepted it when she became a journalist for The chicago tribune at 22, recruited straight out of college. she was turning 25 in about a month and was definitely successful to her standards.

Why was she at the park that day? she was ‘babysitting’ though the actual word should be ‘raising’ her little brother, Jeremy.

He was 11 and had begged her to take him to the park two days before, she had agreed on today but completely forgot after her long night out. she was already planning on sleeping in till she got a nonstop call from her cousin who reminded her that she had a brother who would not stop fussing till Camille arrived.

She got up immediately and then sat right back down after her head started pounding. she didn’t even shower but did her best to look presentable because it was already 1 o clock, before she would drive back home and get to the park it would be about 2 with no delays, and for no reason at all, Roving Hills shut their gates at 4:30, whether for security reasons she had no clue but she and everyone were aware that an average of 3 hours was nowhere near enough playtime for a preteen boy, so in about 15 minutes she was up and out, picking up a very annoyed and loud Jeremy before ending up at a fairly dry bench at 2pm on a Saturday , sipping a cold matcha and contemplating her life’s choices.

Nico also did not want to be there. He was suppressed to be in his house, at his work desk, on his third bottle of water trying to sort out the issue with this annoying client. he had turned 30 in january and was a successful real estate investor who started young, flipping properties and working in commercial development.

This client had continuously rejected the very fair and legal agreements Nico had drawn out so that he could close the deal on a condo up north, but the man that kept declining was insisting that it did not meet ask his standards and kept talking about how he should have hired his own architect to design it, Nico would have shut this down but him this deal was all he needed to cement his status in the business so that this partners and business associates could take him even more seriously.

He had only taken his niece, Jane to Roving Heights today because he felt terrible. her dad had left on a 3 day work trip and her mom, his older sister, had passed away 8 months ago. Jane’s dad had been grieving in his own way but had in the process seemed to forget he had a child. so instead of leaving her to the nanny she had almost started to call mom, Nico took on his uncle duties and offered to take her for a couple of days, today being one of them. So as she ran around bonding with other kids, he was still trying to desperately sort out this issue.

Everything was going as well as it could, in that situation, until a yell and then another, both quite high pitched, before the sound of tiny footsteps pattering in opposite directions.

Jane had just come off the monkey bars and was running towards a sandcastle one of the friends she’d made was building , when Jeremy crash landed onto her shoulders, knocking them both to the ground, Jane on her side and Jeremy on his back. He wasn’t always this reckless but he was trying to make as much use of his time left as possible so carelessly, mid- swing, he jumped off it , planning to run towards the soccer field where another boy and just called him to, he wasn’t looking straight ahead of him though that’s exactly where his eyes should have been , and therefore ended up hitting her accidentally.

She got up, and defensively thinking it was on purpose, God knows why, she shoved him back with quite some strength , walking away and he , with his little ego not wanting someone to make fun of him, funny enough shoved her back though not as hard but she was unprepared and fell to the ground again. she started crying a bit though not before she tripped him with her leg smugly. then they both got up and ran to their respective non-parents.

Coming face to face with each other, Nico was already judging Camille, i mean it wasn’t hard to , she looked quite disheveled and her “son” had just assaulted his “daughter”.

Funny how in the heat of the moment, none of them seemed to clarify these children’s relations to themselves.

‘Did you do that on purpose, what’s your kid’s problem!’ He stepped closer already upset from the day, ‘She’s just a little girl.’

What a terrible mom, he thought. How dare her careless son bump into his niece was always going through a lot, little did he know they all were, and that Camille was even fighting for the same cause he was.

‘Excuse me? Of course not, tell him Jere!’ Camille was even more annoyed that this stuck up, arrogant man was trying to lecture her when her brother had only just accidentally hit her and that even after he apologized she still pushed him.

Of course Camille knew that Jeremy was definitely the wrong but her ego did not to give in to this man who she already had noticed was judging her looks. She became just a little self conscious aware of the fact that he looked like a CEO of one of the big companies she had interviewed and that she definitely did not look trustworthy or like she took care of herself, but she was still going to stand her ground. He was handsome of course, the suit he was wearing only asking to his attractiveness but he had a kid, she was definitely not into that, she already had one to take care of, and he was probably married. What the hell was she doing, sizing this man up? she laughed to herself.

‘I’m so sorry, let me give you my card. He’s a little reckless today and even though he’s probably injured too, i’ll pay for anything concerning your kid if she needs to go to the hospital.’ Camille figured it was best to let this go , just in case she would have to see him one day for work or something, and she did NOT want to be put in that situation

Nico took the card and glanced back at the young woman who almost seemed to young to be the mother to this boy. She was good-looking, striking even and he was sure she looked very pretty on a good day, but today was not one. She was probably a teen mother or something, definitely not raising her son right leading to him hitting a girl back or something along those lines. He glanced at the card, saw ‘journalist’ at the bottom and looked back up but she was already walking away.

Little did he know, she was just as fierce as he was, supporting the same organization he headed, fighting against the domestic sexual assault that had happened to his sister a year ago, that she had never gotten over even with the perpetrator being arrested and multiple therapy sessions, she just couldn’t take it and probably without considering her 8 year old, ended her own life.

Crazy to think if he knew where Camille had been the night before, he may have reacted a little calmer, maybe even offered to also pay for any injuries Jeremy had sustained, or even invited her for a cup of coffee. but he didn’t know, and he wouldn’t for some time.

Fate had just set its course. From this moment on, every step, every choice, every coincidence would lead them closer, until they were no longer strangers at all.