Pieces of the Past - [Danona] Book One ✓

07. sit and say grace

She gave him clarity. It was almost like it was her superpower. Except, not all superpowers were put to good use. Some could be healing, some could be damaging. Some could be given, and some could be taken away. And just as she had given him clarity, she had taken it from him as well.

It seemed with every ounce of clarity she had nearly given him, it only ever multiplied the confusion. The muddled mess of emotions and intentions. For someone who made him see the world as crystal clear as possible, it scared him by just how disoriented she could make him as well.

The truth is, he was not as ready as he had thought he was. He had spent nineteen years thinking that the moment she waltzed back into his life, it would actually be okay. It would be a collision of all the right pieces falling together.

He was wrong. Oh so wrong.

He was not ready. Not even a little bit. Not at all. Except, that was just how the world worked. Ready or not, here it comes. Maybe he would never be prepared. The best-case scenario was that right now, maybe the universe saw him more fit to be put in this situation than he would ever be. More than he could've ever been prepared to be.

But it felt like he wasn't prepared at all. Everything he had planned; everything he had fantasized in his head. He had set himself up for disappointment, except it wasn't disappointment at all. It was just... different. He thought by now that he had considered every possible scenario of how things could come to be, yet none of them were correct. He had prepared for the wrong moments.

Or maybe it was the fact that there had always been a sensical voice in the back of his mind, attempting to talk some sense into him, but to no avail. Always telling him that the odds of anything he had planned happening were so far out of reach that it was nearly impossible. Sometimes, when the sun shined just right and the clouds moved out of the way, he was able to silence that voice.

The voice had been wrong. For once in his miserable life, the logical voice had been so wrong. She would step into his life as if it were a fairy tale; she already did. That in itself had broken the one in a million odds that he'd ever see her again. As time passed, more and more of those odds had been beat. She was here, she was close, she was a part of his life now.

But the confusion became painful. With blessings always came disorientation. How was this happening? Why was it happening? Why was the universe actually going out of its way to make sure she ended up right back in front of him as if he was being offered a second chance. Not just a second chance, but a chance with her having no recognition of who he was in her old life. A clean slate.

Why?

He couldn't think of the reasons why. He didn't even want to fathom it because it seemed like every time he overthought something, the outcome would never match up to what he expected. Winona sitting in his living room with their daughter yesterday had proven that theory. He could overthink every single reason for the universe's motives, but that never meant it would be correct.