Page 20 of Stolen Fate

Evelyn

It was nearingthe end of my shift at the hospital. I was dead on my feet, and I didn’t know where I was going to find the energy to drive home at this time of night.

I volunteered three times a week at a pediatric unit at a large hospital nearby.

I had been doing this for six months now—when I realized I didn’t like having free time on my hands.

After I was chosen six years ago and had 150 thousand dollars transferred to my account, the first thing I did was pay off all the debt owed on the house. Then I had Ethan transfer the title to me, so that only my dad and I were the beneficiaries of our home. I wasn’t going to trust Ethan with that anymore. It was my fault for not paying attention to that small detail years before.

Then I paid Emilia’s tuition for her first year at Bowing’s and set up a separate account for her, so she didn’t have to work right away when she arrived in London. Luckily, she was able to find a work-study job on campus and was approved for student loans for the remaining years. Emilia understood we didn’t have enough to put her through the whole four years, but we got her through that first year and figured out the rest.

When she had graduated, she decided to stay in London and work as one of Bowing’s dance instructors. Since she got a job with the school, a good portion of her student loans were forgiven.

My baby sister was doing well for herself.

Although things had worked out for my family, I sometimes wished I never took the job. I wouldn’t be so goddamn broken if that were the case. And there was no way for me to go to anyone about it, because I didn’t know the identity of the person who paid me, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if what we did was even legal.

It didn’t matter. I did the job and I took the money.

When all was said and done, I found I couldn’t bring myself to live in the house anymore, so I moved to Boston with Katie. I found a freelance job tutoring kids online, while I waited tables on the weekends, and any other free time I had left was dedicated to volunteering.

Though I loved it, it was taking a toll on me in the recent months. It was fine if I was interacting with the kids—reading to them, connecting with them, making them laugh—but sometimes—most of the time—the kids didn’t get better. And it was killing me slowly on the inside to witness their deterioration, hopelessly standing on the sidelines, not being able to do a damn thing about it.

I thought it would help me.

But nothing was helping. Not even the fact that Ethan was no longer that careless boy he had been six years ago.

In fact, the only thing that had helped, temporarily, was my one-night stand a few days ago. I was still thinking about Jace 72 hours after I left his hotel room, and I wondered if he was still in Boston, or if he’d left to go home already.

I shook my head absently. I should stop obsessing over Jace. I didn’t even know the man and he had done what I wanted him to do—he made me forget what that day meant to me, forget that I was sad, and now, I should be moving on with my life.

Everyone else was getting on with their lives, so why couldn’t I just fucking do the same?

I needed to start over.

I needed to…

I didn’t know.

I stepped out of the elevator when it got to my floor, and slowly walked across the huge lobby to the main entrance. Everything was quiet. It was almost eight o’clock at night, past the time for dinner, and even though I hadn’t eaten more than a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, I wasn’t hungry.

I just wanted to go home and sleep.

I didn’t even know why I was dedicating so much of my time to working with children.

When I was younger, I always thought I would work with them. I loved children, and though my aspiration as a schoolteacher didn’t exactly pan out, I still liked working with them. I just didn’t like the way my life was going right now.

My phone beeped, and I had half a mind to ignore it. The only people who called me these days were my brother, Katie, and my dad.

It was only because I thought it might be my dad that I reached inside my purse for my phone.

I knew it broke his heart when I told him I wanted to move out. Especially when I was still broken from taking that job six years ago.

I didn’t see my dad or Emilia the whole time I was doing the job, and I learned that I didn’t know what true isolation was until then.

Ethan, however, found me six months in. I didn’t know he had the ability to track my phone—and that was a whole other issue between us—but I couldn’t get into it then because he had shown up at my door, taking me by surprise, and when he saw me, I couldn’t exactly hide what I had been doing.

I knew he felt a lot of guilt about it, but I still didn’t want to talk to him about it.

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