Epilogue
Katherine
Two and half years later
I ’m not sure how it's taken us this long to finally get a chance to surf in California but it has.
We’re staying in Santa Monica where Dad and Ella grow up while I write a new article, but today, we got up early—stupid early—to catch the morning waves at a secret spot Ella told us about.
We’re the only two people out on the water at the moment and for a second it feels like our first date all over again, yes I do count Stargaze Perch Lighthouse as our first date. Alone, but with each other. The sun’s only been up for a few hours but it beats down on my face when I look up to the sky.
“It’s still not as good as the waves in Gull’s,” James tells me from the board next to me, he grabs my calf under the water and pulls me closer to him.
My right leg wrapping around his left to keep me in place. “You’ve said that about everywhere we’ve been.” He has.
Turns out the ocean is somehow magical in Gull’s Bay because no surf has been as good since we started travelling. I mean he’s not wrong there is something truly magical about that place. God I can’t wait to be back there next year but right now we’re State side and I’ve tried my best to guide my writing jobs to the coast.
I’m basically Tommy’s travelling writer now. As per my contract anyway, I am allowed to work remotely and considering the kind of work I do for the website now, it makes complete sense.
After I published the first part of my story about James and I, I was inundated with emails and DMs from people all over the world telling me about their crazy soulmates stories. Because as it turns out, the world is just as crazy and unsettling as I’d always worried but now I get to share all those stories with millions of readers.
“Am I wrong?” he says, moving his hand in the water, watching the shoreline for our next wave.
God I love this.
I never thought one of my favourite things in the world would be surfing with him. Or really doing anything with him, truthfully I actually think one of my favourite things might be going to the grocery store with him past eleven. Not a single other soul, just us, singing to the music playing and picking snacks out for each other. But I'll tell him it’s surfing.
“No, never.” I mock leaning over to kiss his cheek, it’s salty but I’m kinda used to that skin ingrained with salt thing now.
This wasn’t how I pictured the first few years of our relationship going, long distance, talking on the phone more than face to face, flying to just see each other for a few weeks at a time. If I could have it my way I’d be living with him by now, I’d wake up everyday with his blonde hair over my pillow or the smell of his coffee coming from the kitchen of the house we have together. But nothing about our relationship has ever been easy. So why start now? But I’m hoping to change that soon.
I haven’t told him yet but I’ve gotten enough stories lined up for next year in Australia for us to finally be in the same country for long enough for us to consider renting together. If he wants to of course, it’s not something we’ve talked about a lot but this is for the long term, us, him and me. It’s forever even if we haven’t said so yet.
“How’s your dad, by the way?” I honestly can’t believe James’ dad will be three years sober in a few months.
What a journey that one has been, James stayed in New York for two months after he came to get his girl back as he put it. Our first Christmas, our first New Year’s. He really threw himself in the deep end with all that, meeting my mom, meeting Bella and Nick. I honestly thought Nick would be the one he’d have to win over the most but really it was Bella. Her job as my best friend, of course but I think deep down she loves him.
They both do and honestly that’s all I could ask for, I’m hoping to plan a little holiday for all of us. Bella, Nick, Maddie, Willie, James and me. They’ve all met on different occasions, that’s a long story for another time but I just feel like we’re going to be each other's family for a long time, might as well make them all be friends now.
It’s kind of crazy how the two of us have contacted four other people to each other, and sometimes I wonder how love will change and grow that one day.
“Yeah, good, he said things with his girlfriend Sally are going well.” And honestly if Jame’s dad can find love again after everything that happened, I truly believe there's something to be said for finally making the changes you need to.
That's one thing that therapy has helped me with, teaching me that it's never too late to make the change you need to. I think James and I both benefited from that lesson and despite the fact I love the man next to me like nothing else that didn't mean there weren't things we had to work through. Separately and together.
I learnt that not everything has to run on my timeline, that things will happen when they're meant to and I can't rush them. I feel like those realizations came from finally processing my grief over my dad passing. Which is a constraint work in progress, but I'm getting there.
James learnt that I wasn't going to leave, that one was hard, but he's better at trusting now. He learnt that loving people and being vulnerable didn't mean they were going to take that part of him and run. I think him working on his relationship with his mom helped with that too.
“Hey, here’s one,” I say pointing off into the distance, the wave too far away to actually start moving but I can see it now. I can feel the ocean change as the kinetic energy moves us.
“Sunshine, can I ask you something?” he asks, sheepish in a way he never is. But I feel my face burn at the nickname, something that has never gone away.
I smile at him, because he can ask me whatever he wants for the rest of my life. “Yeah, but make it quick.” My attention moves from him to the sea back to him.
“Kat, will you keep spending every day with me?” My brows knit together, where is this going? “Spend every day making me happier than the last? Spend every day making me thankful you packed up everything to come find me?”
Is he asking me to live with him?
“James, what are you talking about?” I quiz, the movement of the water picking up as I unhook my leg from him getting ready to move.
He takes a deep breath. “Katherine Miller, will you marry me?”
What?
I didn’t hear that right.
My eyes move from him back to the four hundred ton wave moving closer to us. “James, there is a massive wave coming!”
“Is that a yes?” A smirk pulls on his lips not taking his eyes off of me, the wave getting closer with every passing second .
But I can’t look away from him either. There is no way he’s doing this right now. I look into his eyes and everything in me tells me this is real. That he has chosen right now to propose to me.
“We don’t even live together!” Yet.
“That’s all just logistic, I want to know if one day you’ll let me call you my wife.”
He’s proposing to me!
I want to leap at him and kiss him until I’m out of breath but that’s not going to work right now. “YES!”
“Thank god because that wave’s about to hit us,” he laughs, smiling bigger than I think I've ever seen.
“You are crazy!”
“Only for you, Sunshine, always for you. I’d start paddling if I was you,” he tells me smiling before turning and paddling back to the shore.
We paddle all the way until I beat him to the break and ride that wave like it’s the last one I’ll get. But it won’t be, because he’ll always let me have the wave, he’ll let me beat him to it.
And when I run on to the beach and drop my board at my feet, there he is already on the sand. Down on one knee, a ring box in his hand and forever in his eyes. And I finally understand why he wouldn’t let me pack the bag this morning.
And I cry as he puts the ring on my finger, I cry while I kiss him and then I cry when I call my mom. And then again when I call Ella and again when I call Bella.
And I cry while we sit on the beach together, watching as more people make their way into the water. And he holds me like he always has, he holds me like he promised he always would.
This is the forever I wanted, the forever I didn’t know I needed but the one I get to have.
The one I was meant to have even if I didn’t know it three years ago.