Page 130 of It Must Be Fate

The ripples of that one afternoon cracked the very foundation of our found family. Those fissures kept pushing usfurther apart for a long time. It would take years and us parents getting out of the way for things to finally settle back into place.

We would all be happy again, but I didn’t know it then.

***

Twenty years after graduation

Chapter Thirty-One

Rhys

We exit the main building and walk out into the warm June day, the various couples holding hands as we amble out onto the perfectly trimmed grass.

Turning back towards the building, Rogue wraps an arm around Bellamy’s shoulders and looks at his son.

“What did you think of that, Rhodes?”

The boy in question shrugs, his face an unreadable mask.

“It fucking bored me,” he answers dispassionately.

Bellamy frowns. “Language!”

Rhodes turns on his heels and walks away, taking a path that we all know will lead him to a fork in the road between the pond and forest.

I watch him go, realizing that the fourteen-year-old is more man than boy these days. He’s already well over six feet tall, witha full head of chestnut brown hair and moody dark green eyes. He looks too much like his father for his own good.

I need to keep thinking about him as a boy, because if I let myself consider him a man, I’ll want to rip his throat from his neck for what he’s done to my daughter. It’s not lost on anyone here that she’s conspicuously absent from this reunion and that Rhodes is the sole reason for it.

Nera turns towards her daughter. “What about you? Any thoughts about the next four years of your life?”

Suki rolls her eyes at her mother. “Whatever.”

With an insolent flick of her hair, she follows after Rhodes.

I remember a time when Suki was gregarious, funny, and kind, but that was before.

Almost overnight, she changed.

These days she’s nearly unrecognizable from the little girl I watched grow up. She wraps herself in emotions ranging from indifference to downright spitefulness, her razor sharp tongue aimed at those closest to her, a pale imitation of the girl I used to know.

Her parents have tried intervening to get to the root of what’s wrong, but the results have backfired. Once the apple of her father’s eye and her mother’s cherished middle daughter, she’s now frosty with them on the best of days.

And I know it hurts them.

Astra watches her ex-best friend walk away with an expression that hovers between sadness and longing. She was another casualty in Suki’s overnight volte-face. To my knowledge, there was never an official falling out between them; one day, Suki just started giving her the cold shoulder.

Phoenix puts a protective hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

“You okay, star?”

She gives him a sweet smile, as constant in her personality as her friends’ have changed.

“Yes, Daddy. I thought the orientation was very helpful.”

Astra is being kind where the other kids weren’t. Her mother’s family has been coming to RCA almost since the day it was founded. She needs the orientation about as much as I need aFootball for Dummiesbook.

It’s not my first time back at Royal Crown Academy, but it’s always a weird experience. Walking the grounds and the halls as a parent who has hopes and ambitions for his daughters comes with a sort of out of body experience when those halls are the very same I used to wreak havoc in.

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