Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks 1)

He seems to think for what feels like forever before looking between Tris and me. “I… Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

That was a little under a year ago and the legal things still aren’t finished, but I’m hoping it won’t be long before we can make it official. It’s a formality really, I’ll always see them as mine regardless of whether a piece of paper says it to be true or not.

Clay saunters over and stands beside his nana, looking more and more like his dad as the years go by. His light brown hair has started to lighten up into the same sandy-blond as Tris’s and at the age of nearly twelve, he’s shot up and nearly matches my own five-foot-five height.

He dips his fingers into Izzie’s icing and sticks them in his mouth.

“Hey!” Izzie pouts.

“Clay, wait until your sister has cut the cake,” I say with a smirk.

He rolls his eyes. “Fine. Hurry up then, Izzie.”

I giggle as Tris helps Izzie cut the cake. “Dad, I’m old enough to cut it on my own now.”

She’s nine going on nineteen I swear, but her attitude only makes me giggle, especially when Tris doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Here, I’ll take Frankie. Looks like you have your hands full there,” Mom says, taking him out of my arms and ruffling his golden muss of curls, placing him on the floor and guiding him over to the sand pit with Charlotte walking alongside her.

“Wouldn’t want it any other way,” I mutter under my breath, smiling at all of my friends and family. After all of the pain we’ve all suffered, we deserve to be this happy.

I sigh when Tris’s cologne invades my senses as he wraps his arms around my waist from behind, and kisses my cheek. “I hope that’s a happy sigh.”

I chuckle and wave over at Ed as he talks to my mom’s new boyfriend. “Of course it’s a happy sigh. The kids are happy and healthy, we’re living in my dream house, and our friends and family are happy and healthy too. But most of all…” I turn in his arms and hook my hands behind his neck. “We found each other again.”

His gray eyes sparkle as he dips his head and kisses me softly. “I love you, Harmony Carter. Always have, always will. You’ve etched your way over every piece of my heart.”

It may have taken a long while and we may have had to work through all of our problems, but we did it together.

“I love—”

“Dad, Mom, look at what Uncle Nate has taught me!” Everyone freezes at Izzie’s words and Tris’s arms tighten around me as we watch her do a front flip on the trampoline. She lands it perfectly and grins, looking around at us all. “Did you not see? Do you want me to do it again?”

Tears prick my eyes and I swipe at them when they fall. “No, sweetie. We all saw the first time, it was amazing. But be careful.”

She beams and starts jumping again, breaking everyone’s trance. Tristan furrows his brow but it turns into a smile as he looks at me.

“She—she called me Mom,” I stutter.

He nods and pulls me into his chest, resting his chin on the top of my head. “She sure did.”

I bring the car to a stop, staring at the black gates that have haunted me for such a long time. Only three years ago, I wouldn’t have come here in the daylight, preferring to be here in the darkness of the night.

It’s different now though, so very different, because as I turn my head toward the passenger seat, I’m met with a pair of honey eyes and a soft smile.

“Ready?” she asks, reaching her hand out and squeezing my forearm gently.

“Yeah,” I reply, smiling and pushing the door open before sliding out of the car.

I open the back door and let Clay and Izzie out while Harmony gets Frankie out of his car seat.

I hold my hand out for Izzie as Clay comes to stand beside me. He’s at the age now—the start of his pre-teens—where giving affection isn’t the “cool” thing to do. I remember those days well, but as he comes closer and reaches for my hand, I can’t stop the lump forming in my throat and the smile spreading across my face.

Harmony walks beside us, holding a sleepy Frankie as we walk up the long path, heading for Natalia’s headstone.

This isn’t a lone thing now, I don’t have to suffer in pain and regret on my own anymore. Now I have my whole family who comes with me and helps me deal with my emotions one day at a time. But the most important thing that I’ve learned is to celebrate Natalia and her life instead of being in despair and mourning for her loss. She left her mark on the world with Clay and Izzie, and I have no doubt in my mind that they’re going to be some of the best marks left on this planet.

We stop at the headstone and all take it in turns to catch her up with what’s going on in our lives at the moment. We come often now, but every day, this time of year, we make it about us all coming to visit her at the same time.