Seize Today (Forget Tomorrow)

by Pintip Dunn

  Ryder embraces him tightly. “I love you, Dad.”

  Mikey’s gaze drifts to me. “Take care of each other,” he says.

  He ducks his body through the rapidly contracting window. And then, he is gone.

  The last shred of the energy screen disappears, and the machine shuts off. In the absence of the whirring, I hear the shouts of the rebels. They’re still out there. They still don’t know what’s happening in their world.

  “Come on,” Jessa says gently. “You’re the symbol of the rebellion, Olivia. You gave them hope; you inspired them to fight. You validated what they knew to be true in their hearts. They’re waiting for you.”

  I swallow hard, wiping at my face. At the tears that have fallen on my cheeks, and at the ones that reside in my eyes and in my heart, waiting to be shed.

  We make our way to the entrance of the warehouse, where a rickety ladder leads to an open window. Where my mother sacrificed herself to save her people. Where I’ll address the ones who killed her now, without hate in my heart.

  We’ve all suffered. We’ve all wronged or have been wronged. The only way to move forward now is with forgiveness.

  I climb on the ladder, with Jessa behind me. When we reach the platform, I take a sharp breath. So sharp that it pierces me all the way to my soul. “This is what I meant when I said I saw us fighting together. The actual vision may have depicted a different time, a different scene. But the fight is the same. We weren’t trying to defeat my mother, to tear down a system. We were fighting to save the world.”

  She holds my wrist, and I know that Fate has placed a true friend in my path. “You can always count on me, Livvy,” she says. “Always.”

  I glance at the floor, where Ryder is holding one side of the revolving ladder and Tanner is steadying the other side. And then, I take Jessa’s hand and step onto the sill.

  “The window has closed,” I shout to the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people below. “But we’re still here. And we’re ready to seize what we have left of today. We’re ready to fight for our future!”

  I grip Jessa’s hand and lift it into the air. And the crowd cheers.

  Epilogue

  Two years later…

  Mikaela slaps her dimpled hands in the oval tub, splashing us with a tidal wave of water. “More, more!” the eighteen-month-old squeals.

  “More water?” Her mother, Callie, pats her own face dry with a towel and then picks up a toy watering can to sprinkle drops onto Mikaela’s curls.

  “More play.” The toddler grabs both of her aunts’ hands—mine and Jessa’s—and with surprising force, pulls us forward so that we fall into the tub, too.

  My shirt soaked to my elbows, I catch Jessa’s eyes, and we burst out laughing.

  “She looks so much like Remi, don’t you think?” I ask when I can talk again.

  “Well, of course she looks like Remi.” Callie pulls one of her daughter’s curls straight—and then lets it spring back again. “They are cousins, after all.”

  A flush highlights Callie’s cheeks, and her stomach is round, once again. Twins, this time—just like her and Jessa. Only, Callie won’t be removing one of the embryos to be implanted eleven years later. She’s leaving the babies where they belong: together. They’ll be born together, they’ll grow up together, they’ll live and play together. Still, it’s hard for me to imagine any pair of siblings who love each other more than Callie and Jessa.

  The sun shines over our heads, and we’re on the grass in front of Potts’s cabin. Well, I suppose it’s my cabin, too, since I live here now. I don’t know how long I’ll stay, although my father has said this will always be my home. For now, we’re just enjoying getting to know each other on a deeper level.

  The tub belongs to one of Potts’s bloodhounds, but little Mikaela was so enamored, Callie gave the basin a good rinse and stuck her daughter inside for an impromptu bath.

  Potts and Ryder sit on the porch, their heads bent toward each other, talking. My heart warms at the sight of my father’s white mane brushing against Ryder’s black hair. So, my wish came true after all. I was able to introduce my father to the boy I love.

  Now that Potts has fulfilled his lifelong purpose as the realm machine’s anchor, he’s much less stringent about sticking to a routine. He still eats the same meals, at the same times—fifteen years of habit, after all, is hard to break—but these days, he’ll pass an afternoon chatting on the porch. Just because he feels like it.

  As I watch, Ryder glances up, his lips twitching. The warmth in my heart spreads to my stomach. Two years later, he still has the power to make my skin heat with a single curve of his mouth.

  The time stream has been restored. Turned out, I was right about the cause of the deterioration. After that fateful day, when I lost my precognition and five hundred of North Amerie’s citizens walked through a window into another world, the symptoms of the virus began to disappear. The rest of the formula sustained us until the time stream completely healed.

  It wasn’t an easy transition to the post-virus world. All of our former leaders had left, and there was a lot of confusion, anger, and chaos. But I convinced MK to help us guide the people, and eventually, she became the Chairwoman of the Committee of Agencies. She was my mother’s assistant for so long that she was able to pick up the reins, if not seamlessly, then at least smoothly. Under her watch, our society is crawling back to a version of the world it used to be.

  Future memory still exists, but it’s no longer compulsory for every seventeen-year-old to receive one. The vision is no longer embedded in a black chip implanted under our wrists; it’s no longer used to determine credit loans and job applications and admission into university.

  In fact, if you choose to receive a future memory, after completing a course on its hazards and benefits, you are encouraged to keep the vision private. The future, after all, is yours to embrace or defy.

  The realm machine remains operable, and Potts could reopen a window…but we have no way yet to control which parallel world we connect to. We have no way yet to find the world to which our families traveled. But Tanner’s working on it, along with his research on communication with parallel worlds. We hope, someday, to have a breakthrough. We hope, someday, to be able to send a message or even visit the families who have traveled to a different world, a different time. Tanner’s so brilliant that I’m sure he’ll figure it out sooner or later. After all, he invented future memory. I have no doubt he’ll be the Father of Parallel Worlds, too.

  Fate couldn’t have given me a better brother if She tried. And it looks like I’ll be gaining an amazing sister, too, if our conversation yesterday is any indication.

  “She’ll like it, won’t she?” Tanner asked me nervously, as he passed me a circuit chip ring of his own design.

  “Jessa will love it,” I reassured him.

  Now, I glance at Jessa’s unadorned finger and smile, wondering when I’ll see the ring there. Dropping a kiss on Mikaela’s sudsy head, I leave Callie and Jessa to finish her bath and wander into the woods.

  There weren’t enough of my mother’s remains to incinerate, but maybe it’s better this way. Maybe her presence isn’t just contained in the ashes of her body, but in all of us. In the people she killed, as well as the people who ripped her skin apart with their teeth. She would’ve liked that, I think. After all, that’s what she lived her life for: the people.

  Still, Potts and I come to these rocks, next to this little stream, and he tells me stories about their early life together, about the way she used to be before the mission took over her life. The way she used to visit him when he first retreated to the cabin but then had to stop. He was her anchor, too—her moral anchor. So long as she was still connected to him, she couldn’t make the decisions she needed to make. Couldn’t take the actions she needed to take. So, in a way, she gave up more than their love when she committed to saving the world. She gave up herself.

  I may not have precognition anymore, but I can so clearly see th
e woman, the wife, the mother she would’ve been if our world had handed her a different fate.

  I sit on my usual rock, the one with the flat, cracked surface near the water, and pull my knees to my chest. Hearing a twig crack, I turn, thinking it’s my father. But it’s not.

  Ryder slithers toward me, as sleek and powerful as a predator, but I know now that impressions can be deceiving. What predator would make me split my cheeks with a grin? What predator could make me yank him onto the rock and kiss him until a fish leaps in the stream, splashing cold drops of water on my bare arm?

  I ease back and trace his mouth with my finger. “You and my father were having a pretty serious conversation back there.”

  “Well, I had a serious question to ask him,” he says solemnly.

  I shiver. I love Ryder’s jokes and his lightheartedness, but it’s when he’s at his most somber, like now, that chills run up and down my spine.

  “Oh really?” I ask. “Anything I should be worried about?”

  “Yes.” He gathers both my hands and kneels on the pebbled shore in front of the rock, right where water meets land. “I have to ask you something that will make you reevaluate the way we’ve lived these last two years.”

  A bird swoops low in the sky, and the stream gurgles as it flows around rocks big and small. My skin is both warm from the sun and wet from the water, and my heart—oh, my heart. It might burst right out of my chest. “You…uh, your knee is getting wet.”

  He glances down. “Maybe you should join me, then.” He tugs at my hands, and I slide off the rock onto the ground, onto the pebbles, onto the dampness. If anything, the textured sensation against my knees makes my heart beat even faster.

  “These last two years have been rough,” he says in a low voice. “In some ways, they were the toughest of my life. But they’ve been the happiest, too. Sometimes, I miss Mikey and Angela and Remi so much it hurts to breathe. But then I look at you, and somehow, you take out the shards in my lungs and you smooth the holes. Just by being here. You taught me how to find joy from one moment to the next. You taught me how to live, not in the past or the future. But for today. I’m grateful for every single moment I’ve had with you, and if that’s all I ever have, I’ll never regret the decision I made to stay in this world.”

  He licks his lips, and I hardly dare to breathe, much less talk or move.

  “But I’m selfish. So I’m going to ask you for more.” He turns one of my hands over and presses his lips to my palm. “Are you scared yet?”

  “No,” I manage to say. And it’s true. I know there’s nothing to be scared of. Not with Ryder.

  “I’m asking you to look beyond today. To make a decision about the future.” He lets go of one of my hands and takes a ring out of his pocket, one that is made from the stalks of a plant, twisted together.

  “My uncle Logan gave his heart to Callie with something very similar to this,” he says. “And I’d like to think we can be as happy as they are.”

  He slips the ring over my finger, struggling a little over my knuckle, and I look at it wonderingly.

  “Olivia Dresden. Joy of my life. Via,” he says. “Will you marry me, not just for today, but for all the days to come?”

  “Yes,” I burst out. “In every pathway, and every time, yes.”

  He lowers his lips to mine. In all the futures I’ve ever seen, my precognition never showed me this scene or anything similar to it.

  But you know what? I’m glad. I’m beginning to think, more and more, that it’s better to live life this way. Squarely in the present, seizing each moment, since no one knows for certain what the future will bring.

  Acknowledgments

  This is it—the third book in the FORGET TOMORROW trilogy. I’ve lived in this world and with these characters for years now, and I am so proud of how each individual story and the overall arc turned out.

  First and foremost, I’d like to thank my wonderful readers. I’ve treasured every kind message you’ve sent me, and your enthusiasm for the series has spurred me to write a fitting conclusion for these characters whom I love so much. I hope you enjoy Olivia and Ryder’s story.

  I am blessed to continue working with my editor and publisher, the wonderful Liz Pelletier. Thank you, as always, for your many insights and for your support and belief. Thank you, as well, to the rest of the team at Entangled, especially Melissa Montovani, Christine Chhun, Stacy Abrams, Heather Riccio, and Melanie Smith. You all are amazing, and I am so lucky to be part of the Entangled family!

  Thank you to agent extraordinaire, Beth Miller. I know you don’t agree with my statement that I couldn’t do this without you—so, let me just say that I wouldn’t want to do this without you.

  I am so thankful to be on this journey with my writing partners in crime. Danielle Meitiv, you give me chills (literally) with your brainstorming brilliance. Meg Kassel and Denny Bryce, I love your insights—and I love your friendship even more. Darcy Woods, I wouldn’t be half as productive without your beautiful presence. Vanessa Barneveld, thank you for your unconditional support, and Brenda Drake, thank you for your daily support. I couldn’t ask for better friends.

  Speaking of which…I am writing these acknowledgments during a reunion weekend celebrating twenty-two years of friendship. Thank you to Kai, Bo, Aziel, Mahira, Joydip, Aruna, Francis, Amy, Josh, and Grace for being here for me through the years. Also, I can’t mention long-standing friendships without a shout-out to my dear Anita.

  My stories are deeply rooted in love, and I have the best example in the Hompluems, the Dunns, and the Techavacharas. I highly doubt I could write the stories I do without the lifetime of love and affection you have given me.

  Thank you to my children, Aksara, Atikan, and Adisai. You make me smile every day of your lives, and your presence makes every moment sweeter, every feeling sharper.

  Antoine, I love you to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach. I first said these words to you at our wedding ceremony, and I mean them more with each passing day.

  About the Author

  Pintip Dunn graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with an A.B. in English Literature and Language. She received her J.D. at Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the YALE LAW JOURNAL. She also published an article in the YALE LAW JOURNAL, entitled, “How Judges Overrule: Speech Act Theory and the Doctrine of Stare Decisis.”

  Pintip is represented by literary agent Beth Miller of Writers House. Her debut novel, Forget Tomorrow, is a finalist in the Best First Book category of RWA’s RITA® contest. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Washington Romance Writers, YARWA, and The Golden Network.

  She lives with her husband and children in Maryland. You can learn more about Pintip and her books at www.pintipdunn.com.

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