Then There Was You (Twist of Fate)

  THEN THERE WAS YOU

  A TWIST OF FATE NOVEL

  A.J. DANIELS

  Then There Was You

  A Twist of Fate Novel

  By A.J. Daniels

  Then There Was You is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by A.J. Daniels

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: ©Just Write. Creations

  Edited by Joanne Thompson

  ISBN: 978-1-9992413-0-8

  Created with Vellum

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Warnings

  Blurb

  South African Slang

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Playlist

  Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Resources

  Dedication

  To Caleb, you’re forever missed. R.I.P cousin

  CRWR 471 class of 2019 – I owe a lot of this book to you. Thank you for your feedback and encouragement through the workshops over the last year.

  Warnings

  There are several trigger warnings for this book. If you think this subject matter might affect you, please don’t continue further.

  Trigger warnings: physical and sexual domestic abuse, suicide, rape.

  *Spelling in this book is in British English because the majority takes place in South Africa.

  Blurb

  Annika Holt believed that Jackson Carter was the sole love of her life. Then fate took him away from her when Jack is killed while on deployment with his SEAL team. Angry, she finds herself falling deeper into depression, Annika decides to move back to Cape Town, South Africa. The city where she spent the first part of her childhood and where her family has recently returned. Thinking it will help her grieve her late husband.

  What she didn’t count on is Nathaniel Walker. The tall carpenter and primary school teacher. He awakens something in her she thought had been buried with her husband. Is it possible to have two epic loves? She never thought so.

  Just when she has finally given herself permission to love again, fate throws her another curveball when someone from her past returns.

  What happens when our past and our present collide?

  Trigger warnings: physical and sexual domestic abuse, suicide, rape.

  South African Slang

  Bokkie –Term of endearment. Sweetheart, Honey, etc.

  Boot – Trunk of a car

  Braai – BBQ but it’s done over an open woodfire.

  Bukkie – Pick-up truck

  Cooldrink – Soda or pop

  Fok – Fuck

  Howzit – How are you? / How’s it going?

  Ja - Yes

  Ja-nee – Yes-no.

  Jislaaik – positive or negative surprised expression.

  Koeksister – Sweet pastry that’s been fried and dipped in a honey syrup. Often rolled in coconut flakes afterward.

  Lekker – Cool, nice.

  Moffie – gay male (used in a derogatory fashion)

  Ne? – Do you know what I mean/Do you agree?

  Pavement - Sidewalk

  Potjie – cast iron pot

  Potjiekos – Meat and vegetable dish that is specialty cooked in a potkjie. Traditionally slowed cooked for hours. Served during a Braai.

  Reno – Short for Renault. Type of car.

  Robot – Traffic light

  Slap chips – French fries but better. Usually served with vinegar and salt sprinkled over.

  Snoek – Type of fish found in South Africa. Also known as Barracouta, not to be confused with Barracuda.

  Spar – Name of a grocery store chain in Cape Town.

  **Not slang but Clifton Beach in Cape Town is broken up into four beaches; Clifton 1st, Clifton 2nd, Clifton 3rd, and Clifton 4th

  Prologue

  We’re sorry.

  Two words. Two words that have the power to change everything. Two words that can end life as you know it. Those two words rush over me like a tsunami until I’m drowning. I didn’t know I was quite literally falling until one of the men in his dress blues reaches forward and catches me before I hit the floor, scooping me up in his arms. I can hear the other curse under his breath while making his way into the apartment.

  The cold leather of the sofa greets my skin as I’m laid across it. A glass of water appears on the coffee table in front of the sofa, but I don’t want it.

  “Is there anyone we can call for you, Mrs. Carter?” The water-fetcher asks, his hands wringing the white hat.

  I shake my head, staring up at the hideous popcorn ceiling. There is no one. My parents moved back to Cape Town last year and Londyn, my best friend, is still on the other side of the country, in Florida. And the one person I had here has just… I swallow back the burn of the tears threatening to spill.

  A throat clears, pulling my gaze away from the little bumps of white paint. “Do you need us to stay?”

  I shake my head again. “N-No. That’s okay,” I say in a hoarse whisper, managing to find my voice again. I have no idea who these two men are other than they are officers in the Navy and sent here to deliver the bad news. They aren’t even his teammates. Hot white anger surges through my veins when I hear the click of the front door closing behind them. His teammates couldn’t even come to tell me the news themselves. I would much rather hear it from them than the two strangers who were just in our apartment.

  My apartment now, I guess. Fuck.

  I turn on my side, and curl into fetal position on the cold leather. Jackson is gone. The man I fell in love with at fifteen and married straight out of high school, is gone. Killed in action they said.

  Right there on the sofa, I pray that God takes me too because there is no way He could possibly subject me to the living hell that is life without the love of my life. The other half of my soul.

  Chapter 1

  “Honey, why don’t you come to Cape Town? I heard that P.N.P.S. is looking for a new teacher, you could go work at your old school.”

  The sentence every adult dreads hearing from their parents. She might as well come right out and say, “Your dad and I think you’re unable to function by yourself anymore. Come home so we can keep an eye on you.” I can’t fault her for caring though. It’s been eighteen months since my husband died, and somewhere during those months I forgot to give a damn… about my life, about everyone else. I’ve been stuck in this never-ending cycle
of sleep, Netflix, and trying to remember to eat. Hell, I even left my job at the school a year ago. I’ve been doing website design to keep me afloat whenever I muster up enough energy to drag out my laptop.

  So, yeah. I guess my mother has a point. Plus, I know she’s right. My old principal is still the principal of the primary school I attended from Sub A to the end of grade six before we immigrated to America. I’ve seen her post on the school’s Facebook page. I’m sure if I went to talk to her, she could help get me a teaching job there. It would be so cool to teach at the school I used to attend. And I’m a still a dual citizen so there’d be no added stress of trying to acquire a work visa. I do have a lot of my support system in Cape Town, but Xander and Londyn wouldn’t be there.

  It’s been eighteen months since I had last seen Xander, my husband’s older brother, the morning after Jack’s funeral. I woke up the next morning with a bitching hangover and discovered that Xander was already gone. The note he left said he had an early morning flight, but I had to wonder if he left so early because he couldn’t stand to be in his brother’s house without him. And Londyn… God, she’s been such a rock for me these last eighteen months. She couldn’t get the time off work to fly out here for the funeral, but she helped me organize as much of it as she could from where she was. She even helped set up online payments for some of the bills so that I wouldn’t have to think about them for a while. And her daily texts in the morning help make the day a little easier. They aren’t anything extraordinary, just a few motivational quotes interspersed with some funny memes. And when the pain gets to be too much, she just listens while I cry over the phone or FaceTime. It doesn’t matter if she is still at work or has an early morning meeting. She’s there, and I know I can count on her.

  I mean, I guess that part won’t change much. We can still FaceTime and if I get an international SMS package for my phone, I can still text her. The time difference will be the major hurdle. Cape Town is six hours ahead of Miami. Right now, there’s only a three-hour time difference for us.

  “Annika?” my mom’s voice sounds worried as it comes through the phone and I realize that I haven’t heard a word she’s been saying.

  “I’m still here. I’ll think about it, Mom.”

  I can tell she’s disappointed in my answer when she sighs a little on the other side and then stays quiet for a couple of beats. “I just worry about you, honey. You don’t have anybody there…”

  I wince at the stab of pain her words cause. I know she doesn’t mean to do it but she’s right. I don’t really have anyone in San Diego anymore except for Caleb and a couple of the other guys from Jack’s team, but I hate calling Caleb. I feel like I’m a burden to him. Like a problem he just can’t seem to get rid of.

  “I… I’ll think about it, okay?”

  “Okay, Honey. Your dad and I just worry about you,” she says again.

  “I know,” I say, crawling back under the sheets of the unmade bed. “I’ll call you guys later. Love you.”

  “We love you too, Annika.”

  After hanging up with Mom, I sink further into the big bed and pull the covers over my head, blocking out the mid-afternoon sun shining through the blinds. Could I give up this last piece of Jack?

  Before tucking the phone under a pillow, I shoot a text off to Xander, needing to know what he thinks of me possibly moving back to Cape Town.

  Me: My mom just tried convincing me to move back again.

  X: Are you?

  Me: I don’t know. I don’t have anyone here, X.

  X: You have me.

  Me: You’re not in SD

  X: Then move back to Florida.

  I don’t reply to his last message. Mostly because I don’t know how. I’ve thought about moving back to Florida and being closer to him and Londyn. At least I wouldn’t be totally alone in Florida like I am in San Diego, and Miami is big enough that I wouldn’t have to run into my in-laws if I chose not to. But there’s something about the thought of moving back to Cape Town, moving back to the city that holds so much of my childhood before Jack. It would be like starting over, nobody there knows me except my parents and most of my extended family probably don’t remember me outside of the thirteen-year-old girl I was when we left. With my mind somewhat made up, I fall into a restless sleep.

  * * *

  3 weeks later

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” my mom says, gathering me in her arms as soon as I clear security and baggage pick up.

  “We both are,” my dad chimes in, wrapping an arm around my shoulders the second my mother releases me.

  “It feels weird being back here,” I say, hitching my carry-on higher up my shoulder.

  “Well you haven’t been back here since we left when you were thirteen, honey,” Mom says like I’ve forgotten that fact. The flight here was enough to remind me that I haven’t had to travel like that in fourteen years.

  Chapter 2

  The first thing I notice when I turn the car onto the street that held my childhood home is that everything still looks exactly the way it did when we left so many years ago.

  The second thing I notice is that the tree in the front yard of our house is missing and the in-between owners had ripped up the brick driveway, paving it instead. I shake my head, pulling up to the carport door and putting the car in park. It looks horrible.

  I wonder if my dad had a fit when he saw it earlier. This house was his baby. He built the carport and added the door when he and my mom first bought the house in the 80’s. They also planted the tree that used to be in the front yard. The same tree we took my first day of school pictures under every year until we had immigrated to America in 2001.

  I briefly wonder if the other owners had taken down the six-foot tall, rusting metal clothesline in the backyard too. The same clothesline I would try to climb every spring and summer but instead would just get rust stains on my palms. I hope they just replaced the poles instead of removing the line altogether. I guess I’ll be finding out soon enough, though.

  Shutting the driver’s side door of the Opal, I fish the key out of the front pocket of my shorts and start towards the door. Grinning at the memory of sneaking out of the house while my mom was taking a nap after cleaning all day, I had accidentally locked the door behind me while I ran across the street to play with one of the neighbourhood kids.

  Oh man, were my parents pissed at me that day. I couldn’t sit comfortably for a couple of days after that, but I learnt to always make sure the door wasn’t set to lock behind me after that incident. Probably not the lesson my parents had wanted to teach me, but whatever.

  Pushing open the front door, the stark reality that this hasn’t been my home in about fourteen years comes crashing to the surface. Gone are the carpet floors in the living room I used to fall asleep on during the hot summer months because it was a cool reprieve from the blazing sun, and no one in Cape Town had air conditioning at that time. Air conditioning still is a luxury in Cape Town. At least outside of stores and malls.

  In its place are white tiles. I tip my head to the side, taking in the bright floors. I get why they would want tile floors instead of carpet. Cape Town summers get ridiculously hot and tiles do tend to stay cooler, but I can’t wrap my head around tile floors in anything other than the kitchen and bathroom. I make a mental note to have my cousin over and see how much it would cost me to rip up the bright flooring and put the original tan carpeting in. On second thought, maybe I should look into wooden floors as well.

  I make my way down the narrow hallway to the left. The house is a rancher style with no basement – no one in Cape Town has basements in their houses. I poke my head into the first bedroom on the left and what used to be my younger brother’s room. Or I guess, was supposed to be, would be the right description.

  I swallow back the lump that forms in my throat. We don’t talk about Kody. Twenty-five years later and it’s still too painful to even think about. Mom had a healthy pregnancy. Her doctor didn’t find anything wrong du
ring the multiple check-ups and ultrasounds over those eight months, but right before Mom was about to give birth to him, the baby had stopped breathing. The doctor had gone in for an emergency C-section, but the cord had been wrapped too tightly around his neck and he had turned blue from lack of oxygen. Dad said they tried everything they could to get him breathing again, but nothing had worked.

  While my parents were going through all of this, I was happily playing at my grandparents’ house, excited to meet the new baby. I was finally getting a baby brother. Then the news came by phone call at close to midnight. At first I couldn’t figure out why Granny and Grandpa were crying and so sad. They should be crying tears of happiness. We had a new baby. And then Granny sat me down at the kitchen table and told me that my brother hadn’t made it.

  People don’t think young kids understand what’s going on in the world around them, and for the most part, maybe that’s true. I would beg to differ though. I think kids understand more than what we give them credit for. At three years old I knew what had happened before my granny said the words. I knew after they had hung up the phone with my dad and Granny’s cries turned to small screams as Grandpa tried to comfort her in his arms. They wouldn’t have had that reaction if my brother were alive. I’m not sure how I knew it was Kody who didn’t make it and not Mom, but somehow I knew.

  I move on to my parents’ bedroom after that. The large wall-to-wall, dark wood armoire my parents had built still takes up the far wall. The matching vanity nowhere in sight. My heart soars as I step up to one of the doors of the armoire and pull it open, seeing the tie hooks still on the inside of the door. I remember pulling open this very same door as a kid and seeing all of my dad’s ties hanging neatly from the hooks, before stepping into the closet and closing it behind me. It was my favourite hiding spot when Dad and I played hide-and-seek.

  “No running in the house,” my mom would yell as I raced past her in the kitchen from the backyard door as fast I could to get to my hiding spot before Dad stopped counting.