Epilogue #3
“You’re not,” he said. “And I think the reason you won’t face it is because you’re scared of what you’ll discover. What if I’m holding you back?”
I held a breath for a time, then exhaled and told him the truth. “I fear for you. I don’t know why, but I am so scared that something will happen to you. I’m scared, Easton.”
He gazed into my eyes, weighing my words and hearing the truth in them. “I’m scared, too, Jace,” he said after a time. “I’m scared of so many things that I don’t know where to begin.”
My love. The boy I wanted to hold for the rest of my life. The man I wanted to see every morning when I opened my eyes and feel against me every night I went to sleep. He was lost. He was as lost as me, and he needed a guide.
How had I not seen this already?
“I’m sorry, Easton,” I whispered. “I was selfish.”
His eyebrows curved into a confused frown.
“I thought we could deal with all that shit,” I said. “I still wait for Kevin to show up, to come in somehow, even though we changed the lock. I still think those assholes are waiting for you in the shadows. I still have so much hate left in me.”
Easton stepped closer. We admitted these terrible things to each other from time to time. We only trusted one another to reveal the hatefulness that never fully went out—the hatefulness that the Harpers had taught us and the world never stopped reminding us about.
Holding a breath again, I reached out, letting him take my hands into his. “I’m ready,” I whispered.
Easton said nothing. He waited for me to inevitably change my mind and tell him we were healed. He waited for me to give an impassioned speech about how strong we both were and how we only ever needed each other. It would convince him for a time or convince him to look away for a while.
“I want us to speak to someone,” I said, licking my lips nervously.
“Are you sure?” Easton asked, close to disbelief.
“Yes,” I said. “I want to be better for you. For us. That’s all that matters to me, Easton. And if it means letting someone else help us, then we’ll do that. I don’t want you to spend your life with damaged goods.”
Easton shook his head. “You’re not damaged goods, my love.”
“Neither of us is intact,” I said. “But we can be whole again. Right?”
He stepped closer, his body melting into mine, arms wrapping around me. “Of course we can.”
“I mean it, Easton,” I said, letting him hold me as hard as he liked and resting my head on his shoulder. “I want to spend my life with you.”
“You know I want it, too, Jace,” Easton said with a firmness that was unwavering. “And the next one, and the next one.”
I wrapped my arms around him, putting my hands on his upper back and feeling the heat that radiated from his body.
Last year, when I had thought I was the closest to losing him, he had held me so.
I had cried on his shoulder and thought that was the end of all our pain and struggle. I had thought we were healed by it.
“We will do this together,” Easton said.
I promised him that we would.
When we sealed the promise with a blazing kiss, we sat on the edge of the bed, and I held his hand. Hopeful and fearful at the same time, I looked at him. “But we are better, aren’t we? We did some good things.”
Easton nodded fervently. “Of course.”
“It’s not like we haven’t changed at all, right?” I had to know. I had to know that I hadn’t kept him in one place for this entire year.
“Not at all,” Easton agreed. “And this won’t pull us apart, baby. I won’t let it.”
“It’ll make us stronger,” I said quietly, believing the words that came from my lips. The traumas ran too deep for our love alone to tackle them. It did immense things and healed so many of the wounds, but it was unfair to put such burdens on a love as young as this.
“Let’s sleep, my love,” I said.
Easton agreed. He asked me to turn away and wrapped himself around me, holding me the very same way I had held him so many countless times.
We slept easily because tomorrow was promised to us.
And when winter snows returned, Easton and I found ourselves in a comfortable office overlooking Lake Michigan from the fourteenth floor in downtown Chicago. Nervous butterflies filled my stomach, but Easton’s hand found mine and soothed them into stillness.
A brown-haired woman of middle years and with a kindly, almost motherly face looked up from the notepad. “Should we begin?” Her voice was breathy and smooth, making me trust her at once.
But where did we begin? Where did this whole story start? Adopted by the same people, pitted against one another by the laws of nature and force of survival instinct, we had clashed and found that we loved each other despite every attempt to hate one another.
And when Easton and I looked at one another, both of us unsure how to begin, I saw the depth of love in those deep, green eyes. I saw the promises we had made to each other burning as brightly as they had on that distant day when I’d almost walked away from him.
A little pressure, his hand squeezing mine, and a ghost of a smile on Easton’s lips.
For our future and for our life together, we were ready to begin.
The End.