Fortuity (Transcend 3)

My feet pad across the wet ground until I’m standing behind him. I won’t make him face me, but I need to hear his words as the rain gets heavier and thunder rumbles in the not too far distance.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Nathaniel

“If you’re ever in Wisconsin …” I say. It’s not what I was going to say ten seconds earlier. From her door to here, I let reason sink in, and it’s telling me nothing good will come of telling her what I wanted to say.

“I love you too,” she says.

“Fuck …” I whisper, turning slowly.

She’s soaked, arms hanging limp at her sides. As my gaze makes its way down her drenched body, it stops at her naked wrist. Her fisted hand slowly opens and the gold bracelet falls to the ground. Gracelyn doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look down like it was an accident.

I know there’s a hundred percent chance that Morgan’s turned around, watching us. I know she’ll have a million questions the second I get in the car. And I know I won’t have a clue how to answer half of them.

Still, my hands go straight to Gracelyn’s head, my fingers threading through her wet hair as I kiss her. It’s not the kind of kiss you give someone in front of your ten-year-old daughter.

It’s the kind of kiss you give someone when you love them, and you know this might be the last time you ever kiss them.

It’s the kind of kiss that makes the other person stumble backward and grab hold of your wrists to keep from falling.

It’s the kind of kiss that sustains past the point of reason, to the point of your lungs burning … until the last possible second to leave before missing your flight.

“So much …” I rest my forehead against hers as the rain hits in unrelenting sheets. “I love you so much.”

Gracelyn pulls back an inch at a time until our bodies no longer touch. The rain begins to blur her face as she retreats …

One step.

Two steps.

Three steps.

The bracelet slides past my feet with a gush of water. It’s going to end up in the storm drain. She just keeps taking steps backward. When I can’t bring myself to turn and leave, she does. She turns and walks with no sense of urgency to her balcony stairs. Right when she gets to the top, she looks over her shoulder.

It’s exactly what I need to turn and climb into the car.

“Dad …” Morgan says my name, eyes wide, as I start the car and pull out of the driveway. “You love Gracelyn. I saw the kiss. Dad it was … wow!”

I run a hand through my wet hair, keeping my eyes on the road. “I do. I love Gracelyn … but I love you more.”

*

We arrive in Madison by dinner.

We find a house in less than a week.

We pay cash for it and move in the following week.

We go school shopping.

We take flowers to Jenna’s grave.

We invite all our family over for a housewarming party.

We go to Morgan’s back-to-school night, and I feel completely unprepared. I have to remind myself how to get to the school and what grade she’s in.

“I hope we have all the right supplies,” Morgan says as I follow her through the maze of hallways. She wants to find the room on her own, open her locker on her own, ask her teacher questions on her own. I think my only job is carrying the bag of supplies.

“Right here. Room twenty-five. Mrs. Calloway.” She goes into the room filled with kids while I follow her, giving the name on the door an extended glance.

“She’s pretty,” Morgan whispers and points to the other side of the room where the blond-haired teacher smiles and nods to the group of students and parents huddled around her.

Funny story …

I hired a nanny for Morgan shortly after she was born. Her name was Swayze Samuels. She was fifteen years younger than me. And she knew things about me that happened before she was born. Personal things. Things only my best friend, Morgan Daisy Gallagher, knew. However, my best friend died when we were kids … before Swayze Samuels was born. The most life-changing year of my life has been and always will be the year Swayze Samuels was Morgan’s nanny. It was the year I discovered my nanny had a part of my best friend’s soul woven into hers. She had memories she couldn’t place, but I knew.

Reincarnation. Transcendence. Rebirth.

I still don’t know exactly how to explain it. I just know that I believe.

The first half of the book I’ve written is about that year—the year I discovered something you have to experience to truly believe.

My point?

Well, in spite of the one kiss that happened between us, she belonged to another man. She married that man—Griffin Calloway. Morgan was the flower girl at their wedding.