Page 1 of The Fate Of Us

Prologue

Ineverreallybelievedthose tales—the ones where people had been near death and said their lives flashed before their eyes. I couldn’t understand how years' worth of memories and choices and smiles could play across your mind in a few seconds.

But now… I think I finally knew what they were talking about.

My mind was suddenly a montage of pastel sunsets, sand between my toes, and bus rides to Sunfall Pier, the one that I was convinced only we knew existed.

And as I stared into eyes that I’d told myself I’d never look directly into again, I could bet on the fact that the same memories projecting inmymind, were being played in Nate Patricks’ too.

His name feels odd, echoing in my mind like it was another language entirely. Like the high school French that floated out of my memory the minute the bell rang and I skipped along to my next class. It had practically been that long since I’d seen him anyway… both of us barely eighteen.

That reminder of how long it’s been since I’ve seen him in the flesh makes me recognise how time has, rather unfairly, been so kind to him. His thin, teenage arms have been coated with sun-kissed muscles that are straining the linen shirt that covers them. Gone are his soft, boyish cheeks, replaced by a strong jaw and matching dimples that I told him he’d grow into.

His eyes are still the same, though; all green and velvety and just as dangerous as I remembered them to be. The last time I got lost in them was when he was driving away for college, tears breaching them, while he took more than just boxes of clothes and folders of study notes away with him.

If I’d known that would be the last time I’d ever see him, I wouldn’t have let go. The last time I would hold him. The last time I would feel nothing but love for him.

But even with all the beautiful changes to him, and the nostalgic familiarity of having him close again, the only feeling radiating through my body now… is hate.

“Addy?” he asks, slowly taking in the effects of the last seven years, as he closes the space between us.

Addy.

No one’s called me that in forever. Mainly because that name was for him and his mouth only. It was the name he called me the first day I met him. The one he called me every day afterwards. I didn’t know how badly I’d wanted to hear it again until it so casually slipped past his lips just then.

Which only makes me angrier.

“You're—you're here.” His eyes stop roaming and connect with mine. It really was unfair how much power they had over me. “What are you doing here?”

He sounded so conflicted, his voice just as eager as it was hesitant, as though he didn’t know whether to pick me up and spin me around right here or stick to the silent treatment he gave me the second he left for college life.

I felt that warm fuzziness, still swirling after the summer montage, drain instantly, my lips tightening as I stood that little bit taller. “Well, I auditioned for a role, got the role, and now I’m at the table read,” I say coldly, my face frozen and stare turning as icy as I could make my fiery eyes. “Are you not familiar with the casting process yet?”

The venomous tone my voice had adopted felt so alien to me, especially when talking to Nate. But I couldn’t help it. Seeing him again… it’s resurfacing all those horrible feelings that possessed me that day he never showed up, like hot, thick lava, spewing out and burning everyone in its way.

I can see the moment he remembers that day too. As if my bluntness shocked him into remembering why we drifted apart, I see him change.

His steps turn powerful, backed up by something darker than nostalgia. “Right. Of course. Adaline Moore, ladies and gentlemen,” he leans his torso down, the closest we’d been since the last time he kissed me. “You can always count on her to be honest.”

I didn’t have time to let my body feel the full effects of his words, see just how much sarcasm dripped off every syllable, because out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Jacob Emerson closing in on our standoff.

I know I’ve only just met him, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more thankful for a person in my life at this moment.

“Get out! What the hell are you doing here?” He booms at Nate, reaching his arms around him in a bear hug. Nate doesn’t take his eyes off me for a second, though.

Turns out cinema’s golden boywascapable of being an asshole.

I watch as Jacob’s arms leave Nate, and it’s not long before both of their attentions fall right back onto me. Jacob clears his throat as his hand delicately drops onto my shoulder. “Sorry, Adaline. Nate, this is Adali—”

“I know who she is.”

The harshness of his voice would have worried me at one point in time. Being serious, so blunt and calculated… it was so unlike the person I once knew. Well, with me he wasn’t, anyway. He told me once that he felt like I was the only person who really saw him… knew how he ticked without pitying him.

A boy like Nate was a rare find. So painfully sweet that it hurt me to know how doubtful he was on the inside. He was my escape from a life I wasn’t ready for. He was all the good that existed in the world, and then tripled. He was mine.

It felt like fate when I fell for him.

But sometimes fate has a funny way of showing you how wrong you can be about a person. And right now, I could tell this wasn’t the same Nate Patricks I thought my heart would always belong to.

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