No worries, friend. I definitely recommend playing Awakening before Fates, anyway.
I made many dumb decisions in college and one of them just happened to be dropping $80 or whatever it cost back then on all three Fates games. It worked out for me, because i like Fates' gameplay and characters better than Awakening's shhhh don't tell anyone , but you don't know until you try. Awakening's story is waaaaay better though. Especially for the price.