In response to the original posting, I begin to believe and lean towards set in stone intertwined with free will..... in recent months I've had many people from the past contact me. Some of whom I thought would never speak with me again cuz of how the situation between us was left off. I've had a few experiences in my life where I feel we cant control our pathways and when we veer off something or some one life always manages to put us back on to the path we were meant to be on. I lost a close friend last year, we had a huge bust up and didn't talk for 9 months. It ended really sour between us both and I truly expected never to speak again with them but they did contact me out of the blue to apologize for the way they acted. I realized ~ or believe that my pal and I's paths weren't ended with each other and he explained to me that he'd been going thru some shit and stressful times. Strangely enough an ex of mine from 4 years back contacted me a month ago also to apologize for their ways and how she felt bad for cheating on me and it took her some time to fix her self and her issues to realize the wrong she did in our relationship years back. I believe certainly that people use their free will on their paths to learn the lessons they need to and experiences in life to grow, but ultimately your chapter with that person may not be over yet... even if it's simply to apologize for treating you shitty. As a pp said further upward in this thread... you may choose to have a certain option or a certain action, but ultimately what is meant for you or your path further ahead will be on your life path even if it takes months or years to go back to that area. Personally that shows to me that two people have came back in to my life after learning their experiences and doing what they had to do to look back on our relationships with each other and probably other areas they messed up / needed to learn