Page 105 of The Fate Of Us

I look back up at her, as she loudly sips the last drops of her latte, loud enough that a fewpeople stare over. I couldn’t care less. She could do that all she wants, so long as she’s here, around me, in her hometown where she’s supposed to belong until she leaves for the college she has her heart set on.

“He’s coming,” I say to her, and I can’t help but giggle at how quickly her head shootsup, her golden ponytail whipping her and her eyes hopeful again. How they should be.

“This is gonna be the best night ever.” She says, shaking her head with a hazy smile.

We’ll see about that.

Chapter twenty-nine

Adaline

Youknowhowwhenmost kids leave for college, and their parents kind of have a mid-life crisis and buy a dog, or a new car, or decide that water sports has always been their calling and suddenly two jet skis sit where their cars did on the drive… anything to replace the hole that’s left in their life because their child isn’t there?

Well, James and Betty Moore’s mid-life crisis purchase to me leaving was a $60 million dollar home in West Malibu.

Although, I’m pretty sure they didn’t buy it to replace me… probably to spite me. That would be more their speed.

It’s gorgeous, don’t get me wrong. When Goldie turned into the driveway, my exact words to seeing the size of the place were, ‘Holy fucking shit.’ Pristine white walls and clay tile roofs that overlooked the courtyard, the one with a fountain perched right in the middle. The arched windows and outdoor steps that lead to a wrap-around balcony cast a certain Spanish charm over the place.

And this was just the back of the house.

Pulling into the driveway, Goldie turned down the sweet tones of The Foundations, squinting her eyes as she slowed down… as if the absence of the music would help her park better.

My eyes, however, were still taking in the house before me. Not a house… a mansion. A house was what I grew up in. Picket fences and ice cream trucks that drove by at the same time each week. Connected backyards and sidewalks that wouldn’t mind a pressure wash. The school bus that would stop right outside, and would drop me off every night.

That wasn’t this place.

I could hear the ocean like it was only a few yards away, like the waves were crashing against the other side of the house… mansion. The place looked like it had too many bedrooms for the three people who lived here, too much space for a family that wasn’t really a family.

We get out of the car in silence, like she knows I’m taking everything in before she turns and smiles at me as we reach the front door. “It’s stupid, isn’t it?” she asks, punching in the code to the door.

“What is?”

“This,” she says, waving a hand around as the door glides open. “Living like this.”

“I mean… it’s big… but it’s beautiful.”

“The old house was beautiful too.”

It was. It really was.

“Still, waking up to a view like this every morning surely isn’t the worst thing in the world,” I say, nudging her in the side as she ushers me in. And then I feel my breath catch in the back of my throat. “Holy fucking shit,” I whispered, earning a laugh from Goldie, who skips in front of me.

“Better get the curses out of the way now before Mom hears.”

“She’s still weird about that?” The mental image of the swear jar that was one-quarter away from bursting projected in my mind.

“Unless we’re being paid to curse, then yes.”

And then I realised they were nowhere to be seen. Our parents.

I notice Goldie read the question written across my face before I can ask it. “She’ll be outside.” Her chin nodded over to the glass doors towards the back of the house. “Won’t come in until the sun goes away. He’s in the office. The one in the West Wing.”

“You have a West Wing?”

“Yeah. It’s just as boring as the East one.”

The lack of a welcome party didn’t surprise me in the slightest. It would have been weird if there had been a welcome party. But then, if I concentrate hard enough, I feel it. The sadness. The familiar feeling of being forgotten and abandoned by the two people who were biologically programmed to care for me all rolled into one. The sound of the ocean doesn’t help, all that does is remind me of the pier, the waves, crashing against its shore under the faint moonlight.

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