Epilogue
“Okay, girls, squeeze in together,”Cora said, holding up her phone to take a selfie of all of us wearing our hockey jerseys.
Cora was dating Oli, who was on the Chicago Kings with Noah. Ruby was still dating Callum, but he was on the opposing team, the California Bears. She was still attending LMU, so they were doing the long-distance thing. It worked for them. Finn had moved back to California, and played on the same team as Callum, while Ryder was in Michigan.
As we had planned, Noah and I had told our parents about our relationship, and of course, they reacted the way we expected. They were upset and they had initially cut me off, refusing to pay for college. They had hoped I”d come back home and stay away from Noah, but once they saw him covering my tuition and how our relationship deepened, they gave in and acted like parents again. I would have thought they would’ve been grateful for the fact that Noah had been there to save me that night against Steve, but they tried to brush it off as they did with my ex.
They were only forced to accept it when Steve was sentenced. He got fifteen years in prison. Surprisingly, I found out that it was his second conviction of stalking, and it carried a much heavier sentence because this time it was aggravated stalking. He also was charged and convicted of kidnapping and false imprisonment. I was glad he would be locked up where he deserved to be, and we wouldn’t have to worry about him again.
When the guys all left school and headed to their careers, Ruby, Cora, and I took over the house I had lived in with Noah. We planned to stay there until we all graduated. Luckily, with Oli and Noah still playing for a Chicago team, they were based in the same town as us, but there was a lot of shuffling needed to be able to see each other. They were busy with practices and games, while we were busy with classes and homework. We’d have a lot more time together in the offseason.
It was interesting how much Noah and I had grown as a couple. I didn’t let my past trauma hold me back. When it would have been easy to become more cautious and crawl further into my shell, after again being betrayed by someone I should have been able to trust, I was reminded that I also had friends and a man by my side whom I had no doubt would never hurt me. I chose to focus on that fact and threw myself one hundred percent into everything. My art, my friends, and my crazy stepbrother who had become my other half.