Destiny (5 page)

“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, Olivia 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 turn 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.”

“What’s
wrong with you? How can you tell me this and sound so calm about it? We just
found out that our parents are criminals who are going to be in prison for God
knows how long, and you’re just telling me all of this as if it’s routine. I .
. . I can’t see how . . .”

“Eric,
stop it! I’m as upset about this as you. I’m your big sister, though. It’s my
job to make sure you know the truth about this and to prepare you for what’s
about to happen.”

“I’m
sorry. What’s going to happen?”

“Mom
and Dad don’t have a chance of getting out of this. We’re about to be saying
goodbye to our parents for a long time. I’ve already been accepted into the University
of Miami, so in August, that’s where I’ll be. Until then, I’m going to be
staying at Grandma and Grandpa’s with you. After that, you’ll be on your own.
You need to make some hard decisions. Do you want to live with our grandparents
for the next two years, or is there another option for you?”