Let Me Find Your Omega - Ashe Moon Page 0,20

of it,” I said, and then unhooked my daughter and directed her to a chair.

“Okay, Elise. What are you saying?”

“UncleIvansaidyou’relookingatschoolsand…”

“Slow down!”

She took a breath. “Uncle Ivan said you’re looking at schools? Divination schools? That was why you were at Kole’s today?”

Ah, shit. To be fair, I hadn’t explicitly told my brother not to say anything, but I wished he hadn’t.

“Yeah…”

“Dad, that would be so perfect! Yes! Oh, thank you, thank you!” She got up and did a little dance, chanting, “I’m going to divination school. I’m going to divination school.”

“Wait, just a second, honey. Sit down, okay?”

“What?’

I sat down across from her, got out the brochure for Kole’s academy, and slid it across the table. “This is the school that Kole recommended. Said it’s basically the one and only.”

She grabbed the brochure and looked through it, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Oh, it looks so great. It’s so beautiful. Oh! They teach aura identification! And crystal tuning! Dad!”

I held up my hand. “Honey, please. This school isn’t something I can afford. Kole was able to attend at your age because he has some special abilities or something. I don’t quite understand it, but it seems like no one else gets that opportunity.”

She immediately deflated, and her eyes shimmered with disappointed tears.

“But,” I said quickly. “There might be a way for you to go for high school.”

Pop! She perked up again. “Okay. High school. That’s like… forever away, but I can do that. How?”

“The first part, I think you’ll have no problem with. You have no idea how lucky you are to have Kole as a friend. He’s offered to take you in as an assistant. What you’ve been doing already—you go to him after school and learn from him officially. But there’s a second part, and you’re not gonna like it.”

“What is it? I can do anything.”

“Your grades, honey. You’ve gotta get your grades up, and I mean up. Aunty Jillian wasn’t joking. The only way you’ll be able to go to this academy is if you can get a scholarship to pay for the tuition. And the only way that will happen is if you prove you’ve got the chops. I’m not worried about you learning divination stuff. I know you love that, and Kole knows you have promise. But I’m worried about your grades. Do you think you can do it?”

“Yeah,” she said without hesitation. “I can do it. I have to. I’ll just…I’ll try even harder to stay focused.”

“Okay. It’s all on you, honey. I’ll give Kole a call and tell him.”

She leaped up from her chair and hugged me. “Thank you, Dad! Thank you!”

“That’s wonderful,” Jillian said, coming over to hug Elise. “You’d better work your little butt off.”

“I’m gonna!”

As happy as I was for Elise, I was also really worried. I knew she had the potential to get excellent grades, but could she maintain focus? All I had to reference was my own childhood experience. I had to hope that she could transcend anything I might’ve passed down to her, which was a thought that made me sad. Ivan patted my shoulder as he walked by. I looked up and saw he knew what I was feeling.

After dinner, when Elise had disappeared into her room and Jillian and Ivan had left, I finished cleaning up the dirty dishes and sat by myself at the kitchen table with the pamphlet for the school. All I wanted was for Elise to be able to do everything she wanted. To not feel frustrated and bored in school. To not waste her passion and talents.

I just wanted to be a good dad. To not fail her like her mother had, but that’s exactly how I felt: like I was failing. Which I knew was ridiculous. You had to be a damn highborn millionaire to afford to send your kid to a school like this for their entire education. But it still felt like it was something I should’ve been able to provide for my girl because it was the one thing she needed.

But there was still a chance, and that was what I needed to focus on. I needed to make sure she stayed on track. Thank the heavens that I had Kole in my corner.

Kole… He was something else, like no one I’d ever met before. He was passionate and smart, and it was obvious there was something special about him. He had this shining eccentricity, like he knew all the secrets of the universe and