Epilogue
EPILOGUE
VIOLET - THREE YEARS LATER
“Violet, we’re going to be late,” Izzy yells at me from the living room of our two-bed apartment on the outskirts of London.
As soon as Isaac realised that we needed another room if Izzy was to leave home, our plans of living in central London were crushed, but neither of us minded too much. We managed to find somewhere that we could afford if we both used our student loans and worked part-time, and it worked out for the best. Once we’d settled ourselves in, Izzy slowly moved in, too, with her and Isaac making trips back to their parent’s house to collect her things.
Back then, I’d hoped that maybe his parents would see how well he was doing mentally and academically and apologise, but it never happened. And now, three years later, Isaac and Izzy are both happy enough without them that the thought of going back hasn’t ever crossed their minds.
A part of Isaac knew he’d been missing out on a softer relationship with his parents, but after spending that first summer break with Luke and his parents, he realised that family doesn’t have to mean blood. I’d like to think we’ve made our own little family of three now, too.
That thought quickly goes away when Izzy starts singing, badly and loudly, a made-up song detailing how late we are going to be if I don’t hurry up.
“Oh my god, that is not helping,” I yell back at her from mine and Isaac’s room, fighting to clamp the new butterfly clip Isaac bought for me to the back of my hair so I can do a half up half down style that I know he likes. It takes a few attempts, but I finally get it to sit how I want, and then I dab my face with powder because somehow I worked up a sweat just by doing my hair.
I leave the room Isaac and I have decorated together over the years, a double bed in the middle with a desk on either side for both of us. Isaac’s is filled with all types of pens and markers, his sketchbooks piled high on one side of his drawing tablet, while the other side has a few scattered sketches. It’s messy compared to mine, and I don’t know how he manages to find anything, but he tells me he has a system, and to give him credit, he’s never lost anything yet.
My desk, on the other hand, is neat. My laptop and a larger monitor behind it take up most of the space, and I have two journals on it. The one Isaac got me for our fifteenth birthday looks completely tattered compared to the new one that I’ve been using to work on my current project. Isaac built a few shelves above it, too, for all my books, but I’ve also taken up one entire wall with shelves. Isaac has helped me fill them over the years, buying sequels to books he’s seen me reading or just picking up books that he thinks I’ll like. I still haven’t told him that I love every book he picks for me.
“I should have recorded that singing to show your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” She stands up from the sofa with a scowl on her face.
“Okay, sure.” I give her a knowing look.
I’ve overheard some of her conversations on the phone, so I know she’s been talking to a new boy who joined their school a few months ago. It reminds me of all the nights spent on the phone with Isaac. I’m so happy that now I get to fall asleep in the same bed as him every day.
“The movie starts at six, we have plenty of time,” I tell Izzy, and she gets up to stand by the door, taking my jacket off the hook, and holding it out to me.
“Isaac texted me and said there’s a lot of traffic. Come on, let’s go.” She opens the door, and I’ve never seen her in such a rush before. I know she likes horror movies, but this is a lot just for a rerun of Scream, which she’s already forced us to watch with her countless times.
I glare at her when I take my jacket, and then we’re both out of the door and on our way to the cinema.
The traffic is non-existent. We get there twenty minutes early, but I refrain from saying I told you so. The lobby is busy, and I start to move towards the line for snacks when Izzy stops me.
“Let’s just eat after, instead.”
“You sure?” I ask her because she never turns down popcorn.
“Yeah, let’s just go find our seats.”
I shrug my shoulders and follow after her as she shows her phone to the attendant. He gives her a nod before gesturing and directing us towards screen eleven.
Izzy opens the door for me, and the tunnel to get to the seats is pitch black. I stumble my way through it with her close behind me.
“Are you sure this is the right screen? They haven’t even got the low lights on?”
“I’m sure,” Izzy says. When we turn the corner, every seat in the small theatre is completely empty.
“I thought you said this movie was a classic,” I say sarcastically as I follow her to take our seats, which appear to be in the middle of the very first row in front of the screen.
“It is! We just got here a little early.”
I sigh, pulling out my phone to text Isaac and see where he is. He told me it was going to be a busy day at work when he left this morning so we haven’t talked much, and I’m excited to see him.
Violet
Where are you?
I’m already here with Izzy
I stare at the screen, waiting for a reply, but a few minutes pass, and nothing comes. It’s still just the two of us in the theatre and when I check the time there’s only five minutes until the movie is supposed to start.
“I changed my mind. I want popcorn. Be right back.” Izzy says as she stands up and shuffles past me. She hurries out, and I let out another sigh, tapping my foot against the floor as I lean back in the chair and wait for either sibling to join me .
I check the time again and the movie screen lights up at six on the dot. Izzy is going to hate that she missed the start.
But then, a familiar movie starts to play, one I first saw years ago.
It starts with Isaac and me standing next to each other in our Year 7 classroom, and the movie plays out exactly how I remembered it. Short clips detail our relationship up until that imagined future that we’re now living.
But the movie doesn’t stop there.
The music transitions into another one of our favourite songs, one that always makes me think of our relationship and how lucky I am to have him, and the next clip that plays is us moving into our apartment. The cartoon version of ourselves mimics exactly what happened in real life when we finished moving all our boxes in, Isaac wrapping me in his arms and spinning us around until we both fell to the ground. He had a bump on the back of his head for a few days after that, but he didn’t care at all.
The next scenes are full of our memories from the past few years - our trips to the Lake District, lazy nights at home curled up on the couch, study sessions as we both crammed for exams, and it ends with the both of us graduating a few months ago before the screen turns black.
When it lights up again, it’s just Isaac and I on the screen, no background, no objects, just us. We’re standing in front of each other, my hands in his, before he leans in to kiss me.
The movie theatre lights up, and when I look around, I see Isaac sitting a few chairs down from me, his gaze fixed on me. I started crying at some point during the movie, but it dissolves into sobs as soon as I see his face. Not even a second later, he’s knelt down in front of me, pulling my hands away from my face like he did so many years ago, but this time I’m crying because of how happy I am.
“Hey, you promised me no more crying like this.” His voice is quiet, so lovely, and gentle like it always is.
“What do you expect me to do?” I tell him, sniffing and then he lets go of my hands to wipe at my face as he lets out a soft laugh.
“True, I should have expected this.”
I look down at his face, so handsome and so mine , and push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose before leaning my head down but he pulls back.
“At least let me ask the question first.”
I shove at his shoulder playfully, and then he reaches into his pocket before taking my hand in his again.
“Jaanu, you are the love of my life. I can’t imagine a life without you, and I hope I’m so lucky that I never have to. You have changed my life for the better from the first day I met you, and every day, I’m so thankful for Mrs. Harper and her icebreaker for bringing us together.”
I let out a wet laugh, but I’m so thankful for her, too, and for every single thing in the universe that led to Isaac and I meeting that day.
“I’ve always told you that we’re fated, and all these years later, I still believe it. We were written in the stars, but you shine the brightest out of all of them. It hasn’t been easy for us, but I don’t need it to be. Every single moment we spend together, good or bad, is life-altering just because I’m with you in it.”
A single tear rolls down his face, and I reach out to brush it away, holding his cheek and running my thumb across it back and forth. He leans into my touch for a second before opening up the hand that isn’t holding mine to reveal a small black box.
“I realise I need to open this, but I really don’t want to stop holding your hand, so can you open it for me?” he asks in a nervous ramble, and I burst out laughing before taking it from him. I open the box to see a simple gold ring, a single small diamond embedded in the centre of it.
“Is this…?”
“I asked your mum a while ago, and she gave me that ring. Said she’s been saving it for this.”
I can’t sit in this seat any longer, so I throw myself onto Isaac, wrapping my arms around his shoulders as he falls backward to the floor, his arms coming around my waist to hold me close to him.
“I still haven’t asked the question,” he says from under me, and I lift up to look at his face. Our necklaces are tangled together, so I can’t pull away too far, but I don’t mind the closeness at all. He’s smiling so brightly, and I can’t help but kiss him.
“Isaac,” I say when we pull apart, and he just laughs before reaching for my hand to take the ring from me.
“Violet, jaanu, will you marry me?”
“Of course I will.”
I lean down to kiss him, and I’m crying again. When I look at him, so is he. But he’s wearing that beautiful smile that greets me every morning and is the last thing I see before I go to sleep every night.
I can’t wait to see it for the rest of my life.