Page 12 of Fortuity
“Maybe,” I sighed. It was hard for me to picture it actually happening for me, though. “Stranger things have happened—like that stupid article about me in the paper leading to me getting funding for every foster kid enrolled here will get gift cards for stuff like pizza, groceries, and the campus bookstore plus a little extra cash everymonth!”
When Kyle froze up, I was happy Emily was around to calm him back down and answer for the both of them. “That’s awesome. Is there anything we need to do? Paperwork to befilledout?”
I offered her a quick smile. “Nope. I met with the woman in charge of it yesterday, and she gave me a bunch of stuff to hand out to everyone thisweekend.”
I heaved my backpack off my shoulder and dug through it to pull out two envelopes. Since Kyle didn’t reach out to grab his, I handed them both to Emily. I loved how her eyes opened wide when she looked inside. “Can you pass along our thanks, from the bothofus?”
“Yeah, we’d appreciate it,” Kylemurmured.
“Uh huh, I can tell,” I laughed, knowing damn well he could care less if I thanked Elaine for them. “No worries, though. I’ll pass along your heartfelt gratitude when I talktoher.”
“Please do, because what’s in these?” Emily jiggled the envelopes. “Wow.Justwow.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure how she pulled it off. It’s way more than I expected, even with her telling me the first ones were going to be special because of all the stuff kids need when they move into the dorms. And she did them for all the foster kids enrolled here, not just the incoming freshman. We’re talking about a hundred thousand dollars of stuff, and I first talked to her a week ago. I can’t even wrap my head around how she was able to raise that much money thatquickly.”
“It bears repeating,so...wow.”
I’d certainly said and thought it myself more than once. “Well, if you two crazy kids are all set, I’m going to try to track down the others. I want everyone to get their envelope as soon as possible so they can grab any necessities they’re missing sooner rather thanlater.”
Emily gave me a quick hug but didn’t let me leave without saying one last thing. “I know I’ve said it before, but this bears repeating too. Thank you so much. For everything. I can’t believe I’m here, and I owe it alltoyou.”
I felt my cheeks heat and didn’t quite know how to respond to her gratitude. “I...umm...You. Gah! You don’t owe it all to me. You’re here because you deserve to be. Because you worked hard for it. I just gave you the nudge you needed.That’sall.”
“So not true,” Kyle argued as he wrapped his arms around Emily. “You did way more than give us anudge.”
“Him especially,” sheteased.
“There’s no arguing with that,” I laughed as I walked away, on the lookout for the rest of the kids so I could make their day in the same way I just had with Emily and Kyle. And I owed it all to ElaineMontgomery.
