Destiny

by Mitchel Grace

  “Wait . . . are you serious?”

  “Not at all, but you should see your face,” Olivia said and laughed.

  That laugh was followed by a sneeze, and she was reminded of just how sick she was. I wrapped my arms around her and told her the truth about that week.

  “Well, it’s not that I wouldn’t appreciate more, but I think this week went as well as it could have. I would be scared to change one thing about it. I’m always going to remember you. You know that, right?”

  “You’re talking like this is goodbye.”

  “It kind of is. You need to rest, and your mom is here now. I’m probably going to be leaving soon. After that, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see you again. I know we weren’t supposed to put labels on this or make it anything other than something simple, but I think you’re my dream girl. Right now, you’re sick and in pajamas. Even so, I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful. I think I love you, and I don’t know how to say goodbye.”

  “Then don’t. When the time comes, just say see you later. Mean it, though. Know that we’ll see each other again.”

  We talked about simpler things for a time and ate lunch together. Afterward, I decided to let Olivia rest, though, and let myself out. We exchanged a simple goodbye. It felt wrong on every level, but I had to go. A quick peck on the lips and a see you later were all I could think to give her. It was bittersweet. I had just found what I knew to be the love of my life, and that love was already over.

  I moped throughout the day until night rolled around. We were leaving early the next morning, and everyone went to bed quickly. I found myself sitting up in my room just blankly staring at the wall when my aunt walked passed the doorway. She could see that I was a mess. The heartbreak was written all over my face.

  “What’s going on with you?” she asked as she sat down beside me.

  “I’m fine. I’m just thinking.”

  “It’s about Heather Winter’s daughter, isn’t it? You’re going to miss her.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more than that. I don’t want to go home.”

  “Why not?”

  “I fit in here. You and Uncle Gary have been so great, and then there’s Olivia. I’m not going to find any of this back at home. I’m just not.”

  “You will. You’ve just got to be patient. There will be more girls, and I can’t imagine that you won’t fit in great there. It can be difficult growing up. We all go through different stages where we feel like an outcast, but it’s normal. We find our way. It took me a long time to find my place, but I did eventually, and you will, too. As for Olivia, she’s one girl of many. I know you think she matters a lot right now, and maybe she does, but she’s just the beginning for you. You’re going to date so many girls before you find the right one, and you’re probably going to think a lot of them are right for you, but it just takes some time for that perfect person in the right situation to fall into our laps. It’ll all come to you, though. I promise.”

  “What if I’m not wrong about her? What if this is how things are supposed to be?”

  “Then it’ll be that way eventually. You’ll find your way back to her, or she’ll find her way to you. I met your uncle when I was seventeen, and we dated for a few months, but it didn’t stick. We always came back to each other through the years, though. We didn’t get married until we were in our thirties. Good things take time, and I promise those good things will come to you. You’re too young to worry about any of that right now, though.”

  “Thanks. I wish my parents were a little more like you. Why didn’t you and Uncle Gary ever have children? You would have made a great mom.”

  “We just decided it wasn’t for us,” she said in a dejected tone.

  I would later find out that they couldn’t have children. It was Aunt Kristin’s dream to have a child of her own, but it just wasn’t in the cards for them. That’s the one thing she didn’t tell me that night. Sometimes fate is funny. It can bring people together, but it can also make things impossible that we know are right.

  She tucked me in that night. Even after our talk, I didn’t sleep well, but I was eventually able to drift off. It felt like no sooner than I fell asleep, the alarm went off. I packed my things and got ready. Then I told my aunt and uncle goodbye. It was strange. I didn’t even know them a week before, but I was going to miss them more than I could have ever anticipated.

  I walked out of the house first. My parents and sister were still getting a few things together. When I stepped out the front door, I noticed that Olivia was waiting on her front porch. She was still sick, and she didn’t need to be outside, but there was something she had to say to me. Olivia walked over and spoke before I could say anything.

  “I love you, too. I didn’t say it yesterday, but it’s the truth. I want you to have this,” she said as she handed me a necklace.

  I examined it to see that it was a woman’s piece of jewelry. I didn’t understand why she was giving me that. I didn’t question it, though. Olivia had said she loved me. That was the main thing I was concentrated on. After pausing for a second, she told me all about the necklace.

  “That’s the last thing my dad gave me. I want you to have it for now.”

  “I can’t take this,” I said and tried to give it back.

  “No, you keep it. If you have that, then you’ll have to find me again some day. You couldn’t keep that forever, not when it means so much to me. I want you to promise that you’ll find your way back to me.”

  “I don’t need a necklace to keep that promise. I’ll keep it safe until I can see you again, though.”

  Without saying a word, Olivia kissed me passionately. It was much more intense than the peck from the night before, and it left me feeling like I had just gotten off the most amazing rollercoaster ride. While my head was still spinning, she pulled away and quickly turned toward her house. She didn’t hesitate. Olivia never stopped as she walked straight to her house. I saw a few tears fall from her eyes as she walked away. I wanted to comfort her, but our time had run out. The week had consisted of meeting a new part of my family, many kisses, and a single promise that would define both of us. No matter what, I would always find Olivia again. After that day, I was sure of it.

  Chapter 5

  Changes

  One Year and Six Months Later

  A year and a half later, life had changed a lot for me. I wasn’t the same shy kid I was back when I first met Olivia. I really thought about the talk I had with my sister in Wisconsin and decided to start applying myself more. I even started getting a little sun. My grades improved, and I actually looked like I belonged in Miami. The best part was that a good college seemed like it was going to be a part of my future.

  On a very hot July night, I was at the place that I had been for the last several Friday nights. I was sitting on the beach with my girlfriend, Chastity. We had been dating on and off since the month after I got back from Wisconsin. That trip had given me a lot of confidence, and I made myself talk to Chastity when I went back to school the next semester. I had always noticed her but thought she was a little out of my league. Olivia had taught me that there weren’t really leagues, though. I acted like I belonged with Chastity, and because of that, people assumed I did. I liked her well enough, but my mind always wandered back to my first love.

  Olivia and I had kept in touch at first. We talked nearly every night after I got home. The calls and texts eventually stopped, though. There was no future for us. I was a world away, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Still, a part of me always thought back to her and wondered what if. Chastity was special but not in the same way as Olivia. Chastity was the type of girl I could bring home to my parents. She had a nearly perfect GPA, and she gave off an aura of beauty, as well as complete class. There was something missing, though. Chastity was perfect on paper, but she lacked wit, humor, and the passion that I was able to share with Olivia. A part of me knew that I was probably just looking at the past with rose-colored glasses. After all, Oliv
ia was my first love. Don’t people always remember their first experience with love as something incredible?

  “What are you thinking over there?” Chastity asked as she leaned over on me.

  I had been so lost in thought about Olivia that I had barely noticed how much I was ignoring the girl next to me.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking that we needed to change things up next weekend.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know. It seems like we’re always doing the same things. We go out to dinner and meet up with some friends for a movie or a party. Then we drive out here and watch the waves. I think we need to find some new spots to start and end our dates at, don’t you?”

  “I like this beach. It’s where we shared our first kiss. Besides, no one ever comes out here. We have a spot all to ourselves. What could be better than me and you with the sound of the waves crashing?” she asked and pressed her lips against mine.

  Her kisses were gentle and coordinated perfectly. Chastity did everything by the book, and I had to admit that she did it well, but just like the rest of our lives, even our kisses were predictable. There was never a near miss that we could laugh about or an experimental lip bite. It was simply a soft kiss that transitioned into a ten to twelve second French kiss that always met expectations. It was a strange kind of boring perfection. Looking back, I think it might have been a little weird, but I was bored with that perfection. Just once, I wanted her to do something unpredictable.

  On that night, I tried to force the issue. When Chastity started to pull away, I pulled her back close to me and made our soft and very appropriate kiss into a passionate one. That was what I had been missing. As we kissed, I pulled her down to a blanket we had laid out and wrapped my arms around her. Suddenly, she pulled away.

  “Eric, stop it. I know where this is going, and we’ve talked about it. I can’t do this,” Chastity said.

  “Are you serious? No one’s around, and nobody ever comes out here. We can do whatever we want on this beach, so why can’t you do this?”

  “I made a promise to save myself. I know that’s not popular, but I’m serious about it.”

  “You’ve got to be joking. Come on. We’ve been dating for over a year. Don’t you want to take things further?”

  “Of course I want to, but it’s not something I can do. I’m asking you to respect that.”

  “How can I? It’s ridiculous. Do you love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Do you trust me, too?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “Well, then what’s to question? I just want to be closer with you, and you know you want the same thing.”

  “Maybe I do, but I can’t. If you love me, you’ll understand that and stop pressuring me to have sex with you. Our relationship should be about a lot more than that. Besides, you’re supposed to be one of the few good guys around here. When we first met, you didn’t have a problem with how I felt about this. What changed?”

  She was right. If I really did love her, I would have understood exactly where she was coming from. My focus would have been on a lot more than just sex. Unfortunately, there were two things that were keeping me from being the person Chastity needed. One was that I was a sixteen-year-old boy. Every part of me was screaming to go for it . . . well, at least one part of me. Then there was the main problem. I didn’t love her. I had told her that I did on many occasions, and I did care about her, but I don’t think love was ever an option. My head was still filled with dreams of a girl far away. There was no room in it for another love.

  “You’re right. I’m really sorry. I am a nice guy. I just want to be closer with you. That’s no excuse, though. Can we just forget this ever happened? I love you, and that’s all that really matters here,” I said.

  All was forgiven. That was Chastity’s best quality. She was quick to forgive and even quicker to warm right back up to me. She put her hand in mine and laid her head on my chest. We stayed out and listened to the waves while talking about anything and everything. She would have been most any guy’s dream girl, and maybe she should have been mine. She wasn’t, though.

  When the night was through, I took her back to her parents’ house and went home. My parents were already in bed when I got there, so I quietly snuck into my room. I wasn’t supposed to be out after midnight, so I didn’t want to have that conversation. Then again, it wasn’t like they were going to do anything about it. My mom and dad made a lot of rules, but at the end of the day, they didn’t enforce them.

  On that night, I simply lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. I had so many thoughts running through my mind. Was my future with a girl I didn’t even love? Was my place there in Miami, and finally, would I ever see Olivia again? That question was about to be answered for me, but I wasn’t prepared to find out.

  After I finally drifted off to sleep, a noise woke me up. It sounded like the front door had just been kicked in. I looked over at the clock to see that it was past three. There was a level of fear in me as I got out of bed and walked into the hallway. My mom and dad weren’t in their room, and when I checked on my sister, I could see that she looked scared. I didn’t know what was going on or if we should be worried, but I told Catherine to hang tight while I checked everything out. After all, we were in a rich neighborhood. There were a lot of poor places in the city that ran rampant with crime, but nothing ever happened in our community of millionaires. This had to be a false alarm. As I made my way downstairs, I found out just how wrong I was, however.

  “Get on the floor, and show me your hands!” I heard a man yell.

  I picked up my pace and sprinted down the stairs. What I saw when I reached the bottom was something I’ve never forgotten. My mother and father were on the floor, and men in swat uniforms were handcuffing them. What was going on? I didn’t understand. I wanted nothing more than to dispose of all these men and free my parents, but what could I do? I was just a kid, and a scared one at that. One of the men instructed me to go upstairs and not come down until someone came up to get me. I didn’t dare move. It was as if my body couldn’t. I was in shock. One of the men took me by the arm and led me upstairs. He did it gently. I never got the feeling that he was a threat to me in any way. It was in that moment that it became clear to me. These weren’t criminals. The man escorting me upstairs had the look of a police officer. My parents were suspected of doing something really bad. I didn’t understand, though. My dad was some type of investor. What could he have done that was so wrong, and how was my mom involved in any of this?

  “I need you to keep him with you until someone comes to get you two,” the officer said as he brought me to my sister’s room.

  “What’s going on?” Catherine asked.

  “Someone will explain all of that to you soon enough. Just be patient,” he said before heading back downstairs.

  Catherine looked over at me. She could immediately see that I was in a panic. I wasn’t the type to go into full-blown shock over something light, so she knew that this was really bad.

  “Tell me everything you saw down there,” she said.

  “They’re arresting them.”

  “Who?”

  “Mom and Dad.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. What do you mean? There has to be some type of mistake.”

  “They were on the floor, and . . . and . . .” I managed to say before I completely shut down.

  I didn’t know what else to say. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that I wished things could go back to the way they used to be. Unfortunately, nothing would ever be the same.

  It took some time, but eventually, a cop came upstairs and took us down to the police station. Catherine tried to get him to tell us what was going on, but all he would say was that our parents were suspects in a major crime. At the station, they called my grandparents on my mother’s side. They lived four hours away from us, but they said they would get down to Miami as fast as they could. In the meantime, the police agreed to tu
rn us over to some friends of our family. Jack Harper and his wife, Gillian, had been friends with my parents since I was born. If anyone would know what was going on, they would. My sister knew that, and when we got back to their house, she pulled Jack into another room to ask him what was going on. While they were talking, Gillian showed me to a guest room. I lay back down, but there was no way I was sleeping that morning. I waited until I saw my sister walk into the doorway. Then I motioned for her to come inside. By the expression on her face, I could tell that she didn’t have good news.

  “What did Jack tell you?” I asked.

  “Do you really want to know? It’s not good.”

  “I have to know. If I don’t, I’m always going to wonder why any of this happened.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough, even if I don’t tell you. You deserve to hear it from me, though. Mom and Dad always had money, and there was a reason for that. Dad posed as an investor, but all he really did was arrange sales for certain products and help people hide cash and other items. Mom arranged any meetings that were needed between the people he helped. That’s why she was always on the phone. It seemed like she didn’t have a career, but she was in as deep as Dad.”

  “So all he did was hide some money. What’s so bad about that?”

  “I don’t think you get it. Mom and Dad helped some really bad people hide cash and products that aren’t legal. Some of the biggest drug dealers in the world are located in this city. They need people to find buyers for them and give them safe locations to store their product. Our parents did that.”

  “That can’t be true. Jack’s mistaken. He . . .”

  “Mr. Harper isn’t mistaken, Eric. He knows that because he’s as involved as they are. It turns out that a number of people in our safe little neighborhood are in deep with some of the worst people in this city. He took a risk by telling me what he did, but he thought we deserved to know the truth.”