He walks the space, deep in thought. I allow the silence to stretch between us. A peace developing in this place of opportunities. I hate to break it, but I need to know how and why he knew me before we met, so I circle back to his promise.
“How long were you watching?” My voice is soft against the silence.
“How long? Oh.” Aiden takes a deep breath and comes to stand against the nearest pillar. I can see he’s thinking about how to tell me. I give him the time he needs, knowing no matter how long it takes, I’ll have some answers today.
When he finally looks my way, I see he’s come up with a plan. “Does your memory recall work over long periods of time?”
“Yes…as far as I know, it does.”
He nods. “Good. When was the first time you met Dax?”
I smile. I should have seen that question coming.
“A long time ago.” I’m both relieved and a little sad to reveal the secret I’ve been holding onto since entering their lives. I kept the memories to myself so that they remained precious. Revealing that I knew Dax, that I remembered him as a teen and as a young man just starting out, well, I was worried they’d think meeting them now was intentional; that I’d sought him out. With Frank already griping about me being a gold digger, it seemed best to hide the truth. I knew it would come up at some point, but I honestly thought it would be Dax asking.
“Do you remember the circumstances?”
I keep the incident concise. “Tom got caught stealing food from a store in the Heights. I covered for him with a lie. Probably because he was stealing lunch. No one deserves to go hungry. Dax was there, and after Tom had gone, he followed me to the park to question me.” I suspect Aiden already knows the details, which also means Dax remembers me. Why didn’t he say something before now? I kept quiet because I thought he’d forgotten me.
“That wasn’t your first time meeting. That was the second,” he informs me, wearing a smile that’s half apology and half amusement.
“What? No way!” Aiden smirks. “Fine. Then when?”
“Dax said you were very small. Some bigger kids trapped the little ones on the roundabout at the playground and wouldn’t let them off. Just as he was going to deal with it, a spitfire of a little girl came out swinging in their defence. In Tom’s defence.”
The memory is hazy. In my mind, I see a scruffy little boy in a red shirt. There’s an empty juice box and I hear a rumbling stomach. Then there’s my Nana’s shrewd smile and a bigger kid too.“You’ve got a good kick, kiddo,”he’d said, and I’d never felt prouder.
“Kicking. I came out kicking.” I laugh, but it feels numb, like my amusement is a side-effect of my confusion. Aiden nods patiently, waiting for me to see it all. “That was Tom and Dax?”
“It was,” Aiden admits. “There were other meetings too. Some where you both interacted and some where he saw you from a distance. You always appeared at key points in his life. He surmised you were sent by fate.”
“He thinks I’m his fate?” The notion is both overwhelming and romantic.
“If only,” Aiden grumbles, kicking at a loose stone. “Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so guilty all the time, but no. He thinks you’reTom’sfate. You are always there precisely when that kid needs saving.”
Tom’s fate? Guilty? That puts a whole new spin on Dax’s hot and cold temper. “That’s some karma bullshit right there.”
“I agree…and yet here we are, all tangled up.”
“Where do you come into this?”
Aiden chuckles nervously. He taps his toes on the ground, watching the rubber of his shoes rather than look at me. “Dax wanted to keep tabs on you. Make sure you were doing okay and help you whenever he could. Sometimes I watched over you. Sometimes it was a person I trusted.”
It makes sense and answers a few old questions.
“The textbooks? An entirely new set just for me. I knew it was too good to be a fluke.” A warm sensation fills my chest knowing that each time I read his name on the library card and hoped he was a guardian angel, I wasn’t too far off the mark.
“Yeah,” he confirms and then blows my mind. “The winning scratch card you found on your bus seat. Free ice cream flyers for the Marina. The tickets to the puppet show in Dalton Park, the summer enrolment letter from VCC. You’d have been invited to intern with Trevainne too but…well…shit happened.”
“That was all you guys?”
“They were small things. Useless things. Rewards for working so hard. We had no idea how bad it was for you at home. If we’d known…”
He implied that if they’d known, they’d have stepped in sooner. I’d still be with the kids. Mum and Carlo might have started their home here. I could have escaped Eric sooner. No Olive Tower…no broken elevator…no young man bleeding on the stairs. Maybe fate really does play a part in all this because I’m no longer sure the exchange would have been worth it.
“Then Tom would have died alone on those stairs.”
“Fate,” Aiden mumbles, his thoughts mirroring my own.
