A DATE WITH DESTINY

Chapter 1

It was a cold day, and Sayisha Quinn was walking in the snow, her hands in the pockets of her coat. She was shivering and gritting her teeth tightly, more out of fury than the cold.

She felt extremely tired and weary.She had not slept for days and just when she had finally been able to drag herself over to her psychiatrist's office, she had failed to meet him. As if the disappointment was not enough, it had begun to snow and she waited for a long time, yet the snow did not stop.

She eventually had to step into the snow otherwise she would miss the bus back home.

She was not furious at the psychiatrist. She didn't blame him for not being there when she needed him. She had gone to his office without even confirming that he was in. If only she had been sensible enough to call his office first...... but she wasn't sensible. She had never been sensible. She was quite used to her stupidity by now. After everything she had been through, she didn't need anyone to tell her that she only had herself to blame for her misfortunes.

She was furious at herself for acting stupid again, and as usual she was facing the consequence of her stupidity. At least this time she was only walking in the snow. She would have a fever later but she didn't care. She just wanted to get home and snuggle with the warm sheets on her bed, even though she knew she would not be able to sleep.

Fortunately, she was quite used to being cold so she had no problem in getting to the bus stop on time.

She got home a few minutes before midnight, but that was the only fortunate thing that happened to her.

When she walked into her small apartment, she saw that it was dark inside. She sighed, wishing to cry. She had failed to pay the electricity bill for that month because she had run out of cash. She had been able to live through the previous days because it had not snowed yet, but today it had. And she had walked in the snow till she could not feel her hands or feet anymore. She needed to warm herself but the power was out. She had not paid the bill,so she could not turn on the heater. She would have to sleep cold. It wasn't anything new. It was not something she had never experienced before. It was not even one of the worst things that had ever happened to her.

But that day was different for her.

For the first time in her life, she had felt really alone. She had reached the height of her depression. She began to feel that everybody had been right about her all along. She was born to be miserable. Whatever happened to her was her bad luck and not anyone's fault.

It had been two years since she had been on her own, with no one around her - no family or friend - and she was still living a meaningless and miserable life. No one was here tormenting her or making her regret her existence. Everybody who hated her was far away from her at the moment, yet nothing good had happened to her, rather her life had grown even more difficult and frustrating. In the end, she had come to realize that her mother had been right all along. Kenai had been right too. Even her twin sister Barbara had been right.

She was not just a stupid girl who was miserable enough to want to die if only she could figure out the right way, she was also the most unfortunate person to be born.

No body had ever liked her. No body had ever cared for her. From the moment she was born, she was treated like an outcast in her own home, by her own family. She did not know what it meant to be loved and accepted, she only knew rejection.

Of course she wasn't ignorant. She was stupid but not ignorant. She watched her family show their dissatisfaction with her for such a long time that it was impossible not to know about it. They didn't try very hard to keep the Truth from her. If they had wished, even secretly that she never found out, they would have conducted their conversations in a more private place where she wasn't likely to over hear. But of course they intentionally spoke in loud tones. As if all those years of rejection and neglect weren't enough. They wanted her to know the painful Truth of her existence. They wanted to hurt her over and over again and it was not just about her, it was about her mother - her biological mother - who was long dead, and her father who probably deserved their hatred. As the product of an abominable affair, she deserved their hatred too.

For twenty years, she had struggled with the identity of Sayisha Quinn, Barbara Quinn's quiet and invisible twin sister. Sometimes she made herself so unnoticeable that even she forgot about her own presence.

She winced anytime she thought of Barbara. She despised all of her childhood memories because they were all terrifying. They were the same age and the same size. They even looked a bit alike, but Sayisha had always been weak and stupid. Barbara was smart enough to prey on her weakness. She attached Sayisha with such fierceness and cruelty that Sayisha quickly understood what it really meant to hate someone.

She had always known her mother disliked her. If it hadn't been for her existence- and her biological mother's of course-she wouldn't have had to raise her daughter alone and she wouldn't have had to pretend that she had lost her husband tragically in a plane crash while she was giving birth, and she wouldn't have had to raise her rival's daughter as her own daughter's twin sister when it was Sayisha's fault that her daughter had had to grow up without a father.

The other members of the Quinn family had similar opinions of Sayisha and none of them had ever treated her well, but with Barbara, it was different.

Barbara did not merely dislike her. Dislike was a mild word. It was a feeling you had for someone you considered human, someone who you just didn't like but could probably tolerate.

What Barbara felt for Sayisha wasn't dislike, it was resentment that was so etched in her heart that it had become part of who she was.

Sayisha was always hurt when the woman she was forced to call mother made her feel unwanted, but even florencia Quinn's attitude could not compare to the torments and unavoidable confrontations from Barbara.

Barbara who was supposed to be her other half. Barbara,who should have been her close confidant. That Barbara turned out to be her worst nightmare.

Barbara was not a rival. No. A rival is someone on the same level as you. Someone you can dare to compete with someone who sees you as a competition. But Barbara did not even treat her like human . She had only ever existed as a means for Barbara to vent her anger when she was at her wits end and when things weren't going her Way.

In the past, she would feel that she had been betrayed by her family and she would spend a long time crying and mourning the life she could have had but never did. Perhaps that was why she had foolishly believed that kenai Vesper loved her. She could not even truthfully say that she had not imagined most of what she had believed he felt for her. Even now, two years after he had humiliated her in front of hundreds of people, she did not blame him. She was not even angry at him. She only blamed herself. She could not dare to blame anyone else for her misfortunes other than herself.

Kenai had not hurt or betrayed her. She had misinterpreted his kindness for affection. It wasn't his fault that she was stupid. It wasn't his fault that no one could love or accept her. One would have thought that after living such a tough life, she would know her place. She didn't know how she could have ever imagined that someone as unlucky as she could end up with a man like Kenai ellian Vesper, the heir of the prominent Vesper family, the only son of Jezebel Kensington and jordanus Vesper.

Kenai was born with a golden spoon. His mother came from a Royal Lineage. The kensingtons were related to the Current Royal Family, and it was a well known fact that Kenai was 20th in line to the throne of V country.

Having such a powerful background, kenai could only be with a woman who was worthy enough to stand by his side - a woman his family would approve of and accept - a woman the society would respect.

How had she ever imagined that the Vesper family or even Jezebel Kensington would accept her when those she had considered family all her life had been unable to do so? She should have known that it was her fate to face rejection all her life.

It had been two years already. Now everything was different. Now she no longer wasted her time sleeping or dreaming. Now, she was not ignorant. She had finally accepted the truth about herself. She had embraced her reality.