Epilogue
EPILOGUE
NATE
I f you’d asked me about my life plan six years ago, I’d have laughed in your face.
What life plan ? I would have been better off making a death plan. That’s what I did almost every night of my life. I went out into the dark knowing there was a good chance I wouldn’t be alive in the morning.
Sometimes, that was a real disappointment.
Now I can’t imagine being disappointed to wake up in the morning.
Needless to fucking say, life did not go how I thought it would. I didn’t die in the street. I got rescued from the streets by a man who understood where I’d been and took me into his home and kept me safe until it was time to leave the nest or whatever it is people say when their kids go to college.
Maybe there’s a different term for it if it’s not your son leaving home. My name is Nate Hill, but not because I’m Gabriel’s adopted son. Technically, I’m Gabriel’s adopted brother. There was a lot of wailing and gnashing teeth when I left New York after high school.
I don’t have anything against New York, but again—former street kid. What was I supposed to do? Not take the opportunity to study fine art at Oxford?
Yeah, right.
Of course I was going to do it.
Of course I was going to follow Lydia across the ocean. It’s funny that we’ve switched places with her sister, Catherine. She and Jacob are spending a few years in New York, and Lydia and I are holding things down in London.
Well—we’re back to holding things down in London. We went to New York after Trinity last year, did some art stuff, saw family. Now we’re up at Oxford again. Michaelmas starts on Sunday. One more year in the program, and then?—
I don’t know what we’ll be doing.
I know two things: whatever happens, I’ll be doing it with Lydia, and my past isn’t going to interfere. I’ve almost completely forgotten it by now. It’s not coming back.
I’m going through a bag that I packed in a rush, like an asshole, when paper slides under the door of my room.
“Lyd?”
She doesn’t answer. Sometimes, she’ll slip a drawing or a note under the door and leave. Other times, she’ll just wait in the hall until I unlock the door.
“I’m coming,” I call over my shoulder.
There’s my wallet. Jesus Christ. It’s surreal enough that Lydia and I flew by private jet. It would be embarrassing to have to call and ask some butler to bring it to me.
The paper is all the way inside the door when I get there.
“You could just text me,” I say to the closed door, and pick up the note. “You have a?—”
It’s not a note from Lydia. It’s not one of her drawings, either.
Then note is two words long:
FOUND YOU.
Thank you so much for reading DEARLY DEPARTED! Catherine’s sister, Lydia, is heading off to college in her own romance…and things do not go according to plan.
Nate Hill isn’t who he used to be. The things he did to survive on the street are long gone. The people who hurt him will never find him again.
Until they do.
And this time, his life isn’t the only one at stake.