Page 121 of The Moment Promised

His eyes light up. “I’m so proud of you,” he says in awe.

I chuckle. “I haven’t even started yet.”

He shakes his head. “I can already see the finish line, the children, and families you’ll impact. You’re going to be an amazing lawyer.”

I can picture it too, and the thought brings tears of joy to my eyes. The new future I see for myself lights me on fire, in the best way. I think of my mother, and all the people out there who are experiencing what she did, right now as we speak. I think of the justice they deserve, that their kids deserve.

I’m going to fight like hell to give that to them.

“Are you happy?” he asks.

“Yes…and no.” I sigh, “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.” I squeeze my phone a little tighter. “Except you.”

Emotion flickers across his face.

“I know it’s impossible, but I wish you lived here with me.” I brush away the tear that slips from my eye. “What I would give to wake up next to you every morning.”

“I wish for that too, love.”

All I do is nod, trying to hide the tears from him. I tell him it’s getting late, and I’m tired. We say goodnight and end the call.

29

Get your butt up, sister.” Chloe’s sunshine battles my gray cloud as she enters my bedroom a couple days later.

Boxes clutter my room. The curtains are pulled shut and I lay in bed despite the time. Noon.

“I’m recharging,” I groan, pulling my hot pink comforter over my eyes to shield them from the light as she pulls open my curtains.

I squeeze my eyes shut as she pulls the blanket off me, the cool air covering my skin in goosebumps.

“We are going hiking, sister.” She crosses her arms in a confident manner. She’s been calling me her sister every chance she gets, like the word has been missing from her vocabulary for far too long.

“No way.” I turn over, but she pulls my hands so I’m sitting up, straining to get me the rest of the way out of bed.

“Adeline, you have not seen sunlight in a week,” she says, sitting on the corner of my bed.

Moving into the cabin was a heavy reality check that I’m living a thousand miles from my home. And I don’t mean Key Largo, I mean Finn.

Chloe reels me back into the present. “Please come with me, you wouldn’t want me to get mauled by a bear, would you?”

I roll my eyes, I’d much rather wallow in my dark bedroom, but I’d do anything for my sister. No matter how simple. “Fine.”

She claps her hands with excitement, opening one of my boxes and sifting through my clothes until she finds the outfit I wore when we met. When Finn and I hiked a mountain together for the first time.

It makes me smile that she picked it, and that pain digs into my heart, making me smile a little harder.

Chloe bounces with energy as we hike. I ignore her, panting and dying. She’s way more in shape than I am.

“I love you, sister from another mister,” she says easily, smiling giddily. She uses this expression a lot.

I laugh. “We’re from the same mister, Chloe,” I tell her for the thousandth time, but she just laughs it off like she always does.

Her phone pings, she stops to check it, glances around, and then widens her eyes. “Be right back!” she says in one breath, running off the trail into the forest, leaving me completely alone.

“Chloe?” I shout, about to go after her.

I yelp as someone grabs my shoulders.I’m going to die.

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