Epilogue #2
I’d learned long ago that Shane loved Georgie almost as fiercely as I did.
And it wasn’t out of obligation, but because Georgie had always been part of his world, woven into the fabric of his love for me from the very beginning.
We’d always been a family, even those years we were apart, and Georgie had always mattered to him.
I could still remember that first Thanksgiving we shared together, how Shane showed Georgie how to play bowling on the Wii and somehow calmed a situation that could have turned into disaster.
And now here we were, watching my little brother graduate medical school.
When they announced his residency match earlier this spring, I cried so hard I had to sit down on the kitchen floor. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. His top choice.
He was going to pursue pediatric oncology, just like he’d always said he would.
Georgie had always gravitated toward the hardest medical situations, the rooms where patients were broken, where hope was fragile and desperately needed. He knew what it meant to be a scared kid. He knew what it meant to watch someone you loved fight a battle you couldn’t win for them.
When his name finally echoed through the speakers — George Campbell — Shane was already on his feet.
“THAT’S MY BOY!” he shouted, a smuggled-in air horn blasting loud and proud as Georgie stepped onto the stage, startled and laughing, scanning the crowd until his eyes found us.
He grinned so wide, it was like he couldn’t ask for a single thing in that moment.
My chest ached with the sight.
I clapped and cried and laughed all at once, my hands shaking as Shane cupped them between his, squeezing like he knew exactly what this meant to me. And he did — more than anyone.
That was the thing about us now.
We didn’t have to explain the big feelings. We just held them together.
After the ceremony, we found Georgie in the crush of families and flowers, Shane pulling him into a hug so tight Georgie groaned.
“You’re going to save so many lives,” Shane said roughly, voice thick with pride. “I know it.”
Georgie’s smile softened. “I hope so.”
Two days later, we were home in Tampa, Georgie heading off to enjoy a brief trip with his friends to celebrate making it through med school before they’d all go their separate ways for residency.
Shane and I were already making plans to fly to Los Angeles and get Georgie set up in his new apartment when he returned.
But for now, we were at our home — the one we shared together.
The house greeted us the way it always did, with sunlight spilling through wide windows, the slow sway of palms visible just beyond the glass.
We’d bought it together on the intercoastal, a place that felt both expansive and deeply ours.
We had open spaces softened by overstuffed furniture, books everywhere, and a record player in the corner with stacks of vinyl we argued over lovingly.
It was the kind of house that invited bare feet and long conversations and quiet mornings.
I dropped my bag by the door and sighed.
“I know we had breakfast before the flight, but are you too full for a smoothie?” Shane asked, already moving toward the kitchen.
I laughed. “Never.”
While he worked in the kitchen, I put on a Billie Holiday record and kicked off my shoes, sighing with content at being home. I couldn’t help but wander the halls down to the room we were remodeling, the one we hoped would house a child or two for however long they needed.
We were going to enter the foster care system.
It was something I’d brought up to Shane thinking it might lead to our first argument, that he’d think I was insane for even entertaining the thought.
Instead, I’d been met with excitement and joy, with him pulling me in for a hug before launching into all the logistics before I could even finish my initial thought.
We both wanted a family, and we were going to do it our way.
For many reasons, including biological ones, having kids of our own was out of the question. But what mattered to us was that we could make a difference for children when they needed it most. We could have an impact on a life — on multiple lives — that would have a ripple effect.
There was nothing more powerful than that.
“Okay,” Shane said when I ambled back into the kitchen. He turned to me with two deeply purple smoothies in hand. “I think there’s magic in this one.”
“Oh yeah?” I teased.
One sip, and my eyes widened.
And then I was promptly sent back in time.
The taste dancing on my tongue was a snapshot of 2006, of me and Shane in an old Pontiac, of baby faces and wide-open hearts.
“No,” I breathed. “No, no, no. Shane.” I shook my head, taking another sip that had that same nostalgia laced in it. “How?!”
He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, trying and failing to look casual because he was gloating like a sonofabitch.
“It tastes exactly like it,” I whispered. “The Berry Blast from the Smoothie Guy. Exactly like it.”
Shane continued to gloat. “I tracked him down. Turns out he’s running a food truck in Santa Barbara now. It took some bribery, but I convinced him to share the recipe.”
My heart stuttered.
“You really went out of your way,” I said, and it was like my body knew before my brain did that something big was happening. I started to shake. My breaths were shallow.
Shane cleared his throat and reached for the straw wrapper he’d discarded before handing me my glass. He didn’t toss it in the trash.
He folded it, very carefully, into a perfect little ring.
My breath caught as he knelt.
“Ari, there are a million words I could say to you to convey my undying, unyielding love. I could write an entire book on how much I care for you.” He swallowed.
“But truthfully, we’ve already had enough time stolen from us, and I want to use every second we have left just being together the way we always should have been. ”
I covered my lips, eyes blurring the vision of him knelt before me.
“I’ve loved you through time and distance and mistakes,” he said, voice steady even as emotion lined every word. “We were torn apart by circumstance, by fear, by choices we thought were necessary. But we found our way back. We fought for our second chance. And we earned it.”
He held up the straw wrapper ring with a grin.
“It’s always been you, Ari. And it will always be you. I want you to pick your own ring. I want us to do it together. I want you to know that now, and forevermore, your life and all the big decisions that come with it are yours to mold.”
My heart burst with what those words implied, with how this man knew me better than anyone.
“I can’t wait for what comes next for us. I dream about what a great mother you will be, about how you’ll continue to do good to everyone you come in contact with. But before we expand our family, I want to make ours official.”
Tears streamed down my face as I nodded, laughing through the ache in my chest.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, Shane.”
“I didn’t ask you yet.”
“Well, hurry up!”
He chuckled, pulling my scarred hand to his lips for a kiss before he reached for my left hand and held fast to it. “Ariana, will you marry me?”
“Yes. In this lifetime and every one after it, yes!”
As he slipped the ring onto my finger, I felt it — peace. True, unfiltered, unwavering peace, the kind that only comes after surviving something that tried to break you, and choosing to rebuild despite all the hurdles you faced in the process.
We’d lost so many years, so much time, so much love. But when it really came down to it, none of that mattered.
We weren’t defined by what we’d lost.
We were defined by what we chose to give.
Standing there in our kitchen, sunlight warming my skin, the future stretching open in front of us, I knew we’d give this life all we had.
And that was more than enough for me.