Epilogue
The Future
Jace
By the time the stadium lights click off, the quiet feels earned.
It’s late enough that the campus looks like a different place, sidewalks usually packed with students now stretched wide and mostly empty.
Summer keeps the air thick and heavy, humidity clinging to my skin even after the sun drops.
The freshmen won’t be here for weeks, but the athletes are already moving in.
Early gym lifts. Film sessions. The quiet before the season starts humming.
I lock my office door and stand there for a second with my hand on the knob, listening.
There aren’t any footsteps echoing down the hall, no voices carrying from the locker room, no leftover chaos waiting to be managed. It’s just me.
This used to be when my mind got loud. When this kind of quiet would’ve gotten to me.
Now it doesn’t, it’s just… still.
My phone buzzes as I’m walking down the stairs. I pull it from my pocket expecting it to be Sarah. It’s not. it's a text from Sierra.
Sierra: Can we talk? Not about us. Just… talk. Please.
I stop halfway down the stairwell, thumb hovering.
Six months ago, I couldn’t have done this. I would’ve ignored it, not to punish her, but because I didn’t trust myself to be steady. I didn’t trust the version of me that used to smooth things over without realizing I was doing it.
I’m steadier now, even if I’m not healed or entirely clean about it yet.
I type back.
Me: Where?
Her response comes fast.
Sierra: The Brew House. I’ll be there in twenty.
I stare at the screen a beat longer than necessary, then shove my phone into my pocket and keep moving.
The drive is short. Quiet streets, a few cars at stoplights, the heavy late-summer air pressing in through the cracked window. A couple of guys in practice shorts jog past like they’re already in season. I park across from The Brew House and sit for a second with my hands on the wheel, breathing.
I’m not nervous about seeing her.
I’m nervous about what I’ll feel when I do.
That’s different.
Inside, it smells like cinnamon and espresso and warm pastries. The place is half-empty, the kind of late-night crowd that looks like they’re avoiding their own houses. Sierra sits at a table near the window, both hands wrapped around a paper cup she hasn’t lifted.
When she sees me, her shoulders shift. Not fear. More like she’s bracing herself to stand still.
I walk over and stop at the edge of the table.
“Jace,” she says, quiet.
I nod once. “Sierra.”
There’s a long pause where neither of us reaches for anything. Neither of us mentions the past or offers an apology to make this feel lighter than it is.
Finally, I pull out the chair across from her and sit.
Her gaze flicks to my face and lingers like she’s trying to figure out which Jace showed up.
The one who used to swallow things.
Or the one who doesn’t.
“I’m not here to…” Her voice catches, and she clears her throat. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she says quietly.
“I didn’t know if I was ready,” I say. “But it’s time.”
She nods like she expected that answer.
“I’ve been going to therapy,” she says, then winces like she hates admitting it out loud. “Not because I want sympathy. Because I needed someone to tell me to stop justifying everything by making excuses.”
That lands harder than it should.
Not because it changes anything. Because it’s honest.
I lean back slightly in the chair. “Okay.”
Sierra’s mouth tightens. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“It’s not about having to,”I tell her. “It’s about needing to.”
Her eyes drop to her cup. “I understand that.”
We sit in silence for a moment, long enough that the barista behind the counter glances over like she’s deciding whether we’re about to start a scene.
We’re not.
Sierra lifts her gaze again. “I keep thinking about that night. The gala. The way you looked at me when you found out.”
I don’t flinch, but my chest does something tight and familiar.
“You took my choice away from me,” I say, and the words aren’t calm anymore. “You let me believe that baby was mine. You let me build a future around it. And finding out none of it was true gutted me.”
Her throat works. She swallows. “I thought I was protecting everyone.”
“That’s the problem,” I say, and my voice stays level even as something sharp moves under it. “You weren’t protecting everyone. You were controlling the outcome.”
She nods slowly, eyes glossy but not spilling. “I know.”
I watch her for a beat, looking for the old habits. The deflection. The careful phrasing that made her sound reasonable even when the truth wasn’t.
It’s not there tonight.
Good.
She takes a breath. “I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
I pause. “Why are you here, then?”
Her hands tighten around her cup. “Because I’ve been living in the consequences of what I did, and I realized I’ve never once actually said the simplest part out loud.”
She lifts her eyes, and this time she doesn’t look away.
“I did take your choice,” she says. “I made decisions that weren’t mine to make. And I did it because I was scared.”
I let out a slow breath. “Of your parents.”
She nods. “Of what they’d do if they knew. Of what they’d do to Knox. To you. They don’t lose quietly.”
I don’t respond right away. There’s a version of me, months ago, who would’ve softened at that. Who would’ve reached across the table and offered comfort because discomfort made me feel like I was failing.
I don’t do that. Instead, I say what’s true.
“You don’t get to use fear as an excuse for stealing someone’s life.”
Her eyes close briefly, like the words hit exactly where they’re supposed to. “I know.”
I watch her hands. The way she keeps rubbing her thumb against the seam of the cup, small and restless.
“And,” she adds, voice rougher now, “I’m sorry that I made you doubt your own instincts. I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m sorry you had to stand there and feel like the ground moved under you.”
Something in my chest loosens.
Not forgiveness.
Release.
Because that’s what I needed from her. Not a dramatic apology or tears, or long explanations.
Just ownership.
I exhale slowly. “I’m not going to pretend this didn’t change me.”
Her gaze flickers. “I don’t want you to.” She pauses and whispers. “Please don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say. “But I can’t be part of your life right now. I can’t be in the middle of your life and still move forward with mine. I’m building something with Sarah now, and I can’t blur those lines.”
Sierra’s eyes shine, and she nods like she understands the boundary even if it hurts.
“I understand,” she whispers and swallows. “Are you… happy?”
The question is careful. Not hopeful.
Just curious.
I don’t answer right away because the first thing I picture is Sarah’s face, earlier this morning, hair still damp from the shower, wearing one of my old T-shirts like she owns it.
Coffee in her hand, sleep still in her eyes, and that soft smile she gives me when she sees I’m already overthinking something.
‘You’re here.’ That’s what her presence always says.
“Yes,” I tell Sierra. “I am.”
She nods, looking down. “Good.”
We sit there a moment longer, the kind of silence that isn’t hostile, just final in a quiet way.
When I stand, Sierra stands too, her hands twisting together like she doesn’t know what to do with them. In another version of this, we would’ve hugged. That would be wrong now. Instead, she holds out her hand.
I take it and give it a firm shake. “Take care of yourself,” I say, and I mean it in the only way that matters now.
She nods once. “You too.”
I leave without looking back.
Outside, the air is warm and heavy, and I stand on the sidewalk for a second, letting it force my body into the present.
Then my phone buzzes again.
My Love: You okay?
I stare at the message, thumb hovering, and feel something steady settle in my chest.
I type back.
Me: Yeah. Heading home.
Her reply is immediate.
My Love: Drive safe. I’m still up.
I start walking to my car, and halfway there, I realize my shoulders aren’t tight.
I’m not carrying everything like a weight anymore.
It happened. It shaped me. But it doesn’t own me
It happened. It’s done.
And for the first time, that feels like progress.
The grill’s been going long enough that I should probably be paying closer attention to it.
I’m not.
Ethan stands beside me, arms crossed, watching the burgers with the same focus he gives game film. He clears his throat once, then again, like he’s debating how much he wants to interfere.
“You’re thinking again,” he finally says.
“I’m grilling,” I correct.
“That’s not grilling,” Emma calls from the patio. “That’s you staring into the middle distance while food burns.”
I glance down. One side of the burgers is definitely darker than the other.
“Adds character,” I say, flipping them anyway.
Ethan snorts. “You say that about everything you don’t want to fix.”
I grin because he’s not wrong, and because this—this ribbing, this ease—still feels like something I earned.
There was a time when ease made me uneasy. When quiet moments felt like placeholders for the next shoe to drop. I used to believe comfort was something you borrowed, not something you were allowed to keep.
Now it just feels like life.
Earned, yes—but not in the way I once thought. Not by enduring or sacrificing or swallowing hurt until it faded.. Earned by choosing differently. By not staying where I didn’t belong. By not pretending that stability mattered more than truth.
I glance around the yard again, cataloging the small things. The way the string lights sway slightly in the breeze. The sound of Sarah’s laugh, unguarded and real. The fact that no part of me is bracing.
That might be the biggest change of all.
The backyard is full in that casual, end-of-summer way. Folding tables pushed together under the string lights. A cooler wedged between chairs. Music playing low enough that it blends into conversation instead of competing with it.