Epilogue
LILA
One year later
W e didn’t speak to our parents anymore.
Not after the shouting. The accusations. The threats to tear us apart. When we packed up and left, it was like setting fire to everything we knew.
It sucked going no contact with our parents, but we’d had no choice.
There was no going back. No fixing what was now forever broken.
But we didn’t want to fix it, to be honest.
We wanted freedom to love who we wanted to love. So we moved.
We settled several states away, now living in a place where we knew no one.
We didn’t have much of anything, but it was enough.
Our place was on a quiet strip of road, the little one bedroom house old and outdated, but it had a garage for Eli to do mechanic work for side projects to make extra money.
But it was ours, and we were happy.
I waited tables part-time and took online classes full-time, slowly crawling my way toward a degree in hope I’d be able to help support us and give Eli a little bit of breathing room.
But through all the chaos, one thing had never changed.
He loved me. And I loved him, even if the world called it wrong. Even if it was the kind of love people whispered about behind closed doors and called it a sin.
He was still the only person who ever made me feel like I belonged. And I never wanted to be apart from him.
I stood at the tiny stove stirring pasta and sensed Eli come up behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I instantly rested against his strength.
“Smells good, baby girl,” he murmured, kissing my neck.
I smiled at his compliment.
He turned me around slowly, his calloused hands cupping my face. “I missed you. I always do when you’re not with me.”
“Damn, Eli.” I rested my forehead against his chest and closed my eyes, smelling his clean, masculine scent.
He was my home.
“I love you, Lila.”
“I love you more.”
Outside, the world was cruel and judgmental. But inside this little ,shitty house, in the taboo life we built, there was only us.
Unbreakable and forever.
The End.