Page 113 of The Fate Of Us

The man before me glared at Nate as he gritted out, “Are you still here?”

“Dad!”

“I’ll always be here for her.” His words have me meeting his stare once more. “Always.”

“Except for the one time she needed you the most, and you left her.”

My dad's digs made my body deflate, as a thousand comebacks hiked to the roof of my mouth—

“I could say a million things to you, Sir,” Nate said, beating me to it. “I could tell youwhat an asshole you are, how you’ve never been a father figure to these girls. How self-centred you are for forcing your daughters into this life. But, instead, I’ll say thank you.”

“What?” Both me and my dad say in unison.

“Yeah, thank you, for moulding this girl into the best actress on the planet. And I’mthankful that for the last few years, she carried on in this life she was comfortable with… because that’s what crossed our paths again, what brought us back together.”

Those parts of my heart that had been chipped at over the course of the sunset seemed tomake their way back home with every word that slipped from Nate’s mouth.

My mom peeked up from her hands. “Adaline, darling, I’m so sor—”

“No, Mom. I think that apology is twenty years too late. I don’t want to hear it rightnow.” I took a breath. “What you should do, is console your daughter. Go into her room, both of you, and just look at the college brochures on her floor. Talk to her about her dreams. Not yours, but hers.”

That was enough. That was all I had to say to them.

I dragged my hands through the knots in my hair as my head dipped, the slabs of the sunterrace all I could see. It felt like a volcano that was well overdue an eruption and had finally collided with the tremor to cause just that… and regardless of the devastation it brought, it was needed.

The bad to bring the good. Hopefully.

“I’ll come by in a few days to see her.” I lifted my eyes to meet my parents, theirfaces shattered and hearts probably untouched. I didn't want to think about whether all this had been worth it. Whether anything could come from the truth. Whether people could change that quickly. Not right now. “But I think this dinner party’s over for now.”

Without thinking, I grabbed Nate’s hand as I went to leave, and thankfully, he didn’thesitate when he followed behind me, back through the mansion with our hands intertwined. I marched over to the door and pulled it open, not a creak from the hinges as we left. We walked out into the courtyard, the shadows from the house blanketing the cobbles.

My head felt funny, like the inside of a static screen, with no answers or thoughts or beliefs orquestions. But as I spun around to face Nate, those green gems falling onto me and checking me over… everything became clear.

And like the world stopped spinning for a moment, like it didn’t want to miss the way Igripped Nate’s shirt and pulled his lips onto mine, the salt air calmed, the waves paused their crash onto the sandbank, the sun froze just as it reached the end of the horizon, all to watch as I kissed Nate Patricks.

And as he fell into me, and embraced me… the tides broke, the air whipped around us,and the sun glowed and showered us with light, twinkling us for the stars to see as they faded onto the pastel sunset.

The world… my world, it reset.

Strong hands gripped the back of my head, holding me in place as my hair flailed in thebreeze. Lips that had defended me just now caressed mine, powerful and graceful and completely spelling me to him in the ways I forgot I was.

His touch only polished those ties that I hadn’t seen for years. It dusted off the rope thathad been tied around us for longer than we could imagine. With each tug of his hands in my hair, every time he dipped my head and launched me further into the kiss, he was reminding me of the ways I’d fallen in love with him, that had become blurry, hazy memories.

Like water-damaged photographs that were finally drying out.

There was so much left unspoken between us. There were seven years worth of secretsand missed birthdays and memories to wade through. But right now, when I could see a version of us that I thought could last, dancing on the line where the ocean met the universe, wasn’t the time to talk about what he’d wished for when he blew out his candles, or why he never came back for me.

Right now was for me and Nate and the final moments of the day I remembered howmuch I loved him.

We eased away from each other slowly, my hands on his face, our noses brushing. I couldbarely find the strength to meet his stare, but I did, and I felt just as helpless as I did the first time I got lost in his aventurine eyes.

“I want to go,” I said, before realising I’d even spoken.

He stayed swimming in my eyes for a few moments, treading through the thoughts thatlived in them, before I felt his lips part against mine. “Where do you want to go?”

I shook my head against him. “Anywhere.” I caught my breath. “I don’t care where I goright now, as long as you’ll come with me.”

He nodded against me, his thumb skating across my jaw. “Wherever you are is where Iwant to exist to,”

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