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I was meant to find you — broken under the moonlight, in this field where nobody else saw you, but me.
She shifts on my lap and peeks up at me through her wet lashes. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. Riley is so fucking pretty, with her loose blonde hair, flushed cheeks and teary eyes. Her lips are swollen and the color is an angry pink, as if she’s been biting on them for too long. “What do you mean?” she breathes.
“Do you believe in kismet?” A predetermined destiny.
A destiny that somehow keeps bringing us together, in the most unexpected ways.
Riley blinks up at me. “I guess. But fate has always been cruel to me.”
“Fate has been cruel to me too,” I tell her, swallowing past the heavy lump in my throat.
“I heard…” she trails off, chewing on the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. “I heard where you came from. I mean, before you got adopted by your aunt and uncle. You have a sister, right?”
The Hales are popular around here, so, of course, she’s heard of my family history. When Benjamin and Naveah Hale adopted a boy, out of nowhere, after years of being childless, everyone had questions. Everyone was curious and so the rumors started.
Nobody knows the exact details. Though. But not all the rumors are false. I did come from a filthy, poor background. My mother was an addict. My father is a felon and has been absent most of my life, in and out of prison. I did live in a trailer park for all my life, until now.
I tuck a stubborn strand of her silky hair behind her ear. “I do have a younger sister.”
Her palm rests on my chest, right over my beating heart. Her touch is almost featherlight, soft and tentative. “What’s her name, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Naomi.” Saying her name out loud, after so long, has my heart aching.
“That’s a beautiful name,” Riley whispers. “Do you miss her?”
“Like crazy,” I confess softly. “She’s all I had, until…she was taken away from me.”
“Does that ever make you angry? How unfair fate is.”
I shift, moving to lie on my back on the grass and taking Riley with me. She doesn’t protest; she simply curls up against my body. “I’ve been angry for so long, but my aunt told me that when kismet takes…it gives something else in return. It’s the gift of our patience.”
Riley presses into me, almost like she’s seeking warmth and trying to bury herself under my skin. We’re lying in the middle of the field, and nothing about this feels weird or uncomfortable. It feels right. Almost intimate.
“They stripped me of my dignity and laughed at my undoing. Where’s the gift of my patience?”
“I don’t know.” Rubbing my hand up and down her arm, I stare up at the moonlit sky. “But I can help you find it.”
If you help me find mine…
What is kismet going to give me in return for taking Naomi away from me?
What is my withering soul worthy of?
Riley and I stay quiet for a long time, basking in the thoughtful silence between us. It’s comfortable and pleasant, yet I can’t really explain why it feels like this. The meaning behind the comfort she brings to my cold heart. But I like it.
I like how she feels in my arms. Her breath fanning against my neck, her hair tickling my cheek, her hands tucked between our bodies as we share our warmth against the chilly October night. Her body is not tense, and her breathing is calm again.
She’s not frightened of me, or my size. Being alone with me doesn’t make her uneasy.
I don’t know if she trusts me…
But I know, at least, Goldilocks feels safe with me.
Our silence is disrupted by her phone ringing. Riley lets out an audible gasp, as if finally realizing we’re lying in the middle of the field, and she jerks up into a sitting position.
“It’s Lila,” she says before answering the call.
I sit up too. Riley watches me from the corner of her eye as she distractedly listens to Lila on the other line. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m safe.” She swallows nervouslyand looks up at me from under her thick lashes. “Yes, I’m with Grayson right now. Okay, yeah. Yup, don’t worry. I’m fine. Yes, I will see you tomorrow. Get home safe. Text me when you’re home, okay?”
