Epilogue #2
Ava’s met Jude a couple of times, and she asks, ‘Is she still with whatshisname?’
‘Yeah,’ Dylan replies. ‘But Jude’s very particular about her alone time and forbade him from joining.’
‘And because she is Jude Lamarra,’ I continue, ‘he didn’t bat an eyelid at being told to piss off.’
Dylan lets out one of her laughs that makes my blood feel supercharged. ‘Our compromise, because Max will wither away if he
doesn’t get enough attention, is that in the spring we’ll have a big party in London. So we’ll be able to celebrate without
the pressure of all those eyes on us while we say our vows. This way, we both get what we want.’
The remnants of her laughter still lift her cheeks, and I pull her against my side. It still hits me, even now, how lucky I am to get to do this.
‘Look at you,’ Ava says with a grin. ‘The perfect team.’
That evening, after a long day telling our excited parents about the wedding and answering a thousand questions about it,
Dylan and I walk hand in hand from the beach up to the cabin that started it all.
On our way, we pass our favourite viewpoint. Ava and Finn are sitting on the bench, a sleeping Phoebe draped across them,
the pair of them sharing wine straight from the bottle as they watch the sunset.
Dylan pushes against the blue door and we step across the threshold, kicking our shoes off immediately. She faces me, expression
open and eager, and pulls me closer by my shirt. ‘Are you going to finally let me look at your tattoo now?’
A couple of weeks ago I got a new tattoo on the underside of my ring finger, and any time she’s gone near it I’ve sneakily
flipped my hand or closed my fist. ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’
‘I notice everything about you,’ she admits. I kiss her briefly, sweetly, then she takes my hand and pulls me to the bedroom.
Physically, the room is largely unchanged since we first came here. The floorboard by the door still creaks. Dylan’s eye mask
still rests on her pillow on the right side of the bed. The only real difference is the two suit carriers hanging over the
wardrobe door, white fabric peeking out of the bottom of one of them.
But the entire cabin is wallpapered with our memories now. The ghosts of who we were coexist with the versions of us we’ll
become. Past, present, future, all in one.
I put my hand out, palm up, and she brings it closer to her face to peer at it. I can tell it’s a little underwhelming, because
her nose wrinkles in confusion. It’s a tiny anchor, right where my ring will be.
‘It’s lovely,’ she says, smiling blandly up at me. ‘Very . . . nautical.’
I weave our fingers together and bring her own hand to my lips. ‘It’s for you, obviously.’
‘What with my passion for maritime objects.’
I love this Dylan. Quietly smart-mouthed, pushing against me. ‘Well aside from that,’ I say, tucking that stubborn lock of hair behind her ear. ‘I always know where I am, if you’re around. You keep
me tethered. I could be swept out to sea, but I’d hear your voice in my head telling me to be safe, and it’d bring me back.
Like an anchor.’
Her mouth twitches as her fingers skim my chest. ‘Okay. You win this one.’
‘I get to marry you,’ I say. I press my lips below her jaw and her pulse flutters wildly. I’m always glad it’s not just me
who still reacts like this is the first time, every time. ‘I’ve won everything.’
I catch the hitch of her breath as my mouth moves to her collarbones, but she soldiers on. ‘I get to eat your mug brownies,
though.’
‘Hm,’ I murmur against her throat, ‘it’s a close call.’
I take my time working my way up to her ear, relishing the contented sounds she lets out, and then switch sides, trying to
remember not to leave any marks that might show in the photos we take over the next few days.
‘You know,’ she says, and I pause my efforts to listen and watch the cogs turn in her brain, ‘I think my birthday five years
ago was the day I knew I was falling in love with you. It wasn’t the right time, but everything rushed at me all at once and,
I don’t know, I just knew.’
Love, tender and hardy and ours, lines every inch of her face. Even now, I feel so unbearably grateful that I get to love her and be loved by her that sometimes,
it’s so overwhelming that I have to bring it up in therapy just to make sure it’s healthy. Mostly, though, it just makes me
feel happier and more alive than I ever thought I could be.
‘Falling in love wasn’t a one-time thing, for me,’ I explain. ‘It still happens over and over again, every single day. And
I’m not sure of much, but I know that’ll never stop.’
Her eyes soften, and she winds her hands into my hair, past the barest smattering of grey that dusts my temples. ‘Even when
we’re old and you have to shout at me across the living room because I can’t hear properly?’
‘Dylan, even when all we are is energy, I’ll find your soul in the stardust and keep loving you there, too.’
When our lips meet, I feel it. I know it. What we are can’t be destroyed. The cosmos itself couldn’t get in our way.
‘Max?’ she asks, pulling back to look me in the eye. And there, in front of a familiar view of a darkening sky over a steel
ocean, she reminds me of a vow I once made to her. ‘Promise me tomorrow.’
The word is an unfurling of possibility, a reminder of all the life we haven’t even touched yet. All the memories to make,
all the time left, all the after that used to freeze me in my tracks.
‘You have all my tomorrows,’ I say. My gaze moves to the suit carriers hanging over the wardrobe door, to the ring on the
hand pressing against my chest, and to the gentle eyes of the person who made me believe in more. ‘Every single one.’
She smiles the world’s best smile, and I realise that the heart I thought wasn’t good for anything was always meant for her.
And when she takes my hand in hers, I can’t help but think about where I was twelve years ago: under fluorescents so much
harsher than these, desperate for my family to understand what I was wordlessly telling them, hoping I’d live to say it aloud
again someday.
As if she can sense where my thoughts have drifted, Dylan’s thumb runs across the back of my hand, and then she squeezes.
One.
Two.
Three.