Epilogue
FOUR YEARS LATER
The crowd is deafening.
Twelve thousand people in a Vegas arena screaming Xander Anderson’s name, and I am one of them. Standing in the VIP section in a black dress and heels I can barely walk in, my parents on either side, my voice gone—shredded from two hours of screaming at a cage.
My dad has his arm around my mom. She is filming. He is yelling technical critiques X cannot hear over twelve thousand people: “HANDS UP, XANDER! WATCH THE LEFT!” He yells anyway. Because that’s what fathers do.
I’m graduating Yale this year. Music industry management with the sports management minor that Cat and my mother both saw through from day one. I intern at a management firm in New Haven and fly to every one of X’s fights. My advisor thinks I’m going to be very, very good at this.
Xander and I live together. A small one-bedroom apartment in New Haven—six hundred square feet, a kitchen the size of a closet (a word we both flinch at), a bathroom so small his elbows hit the walls.
But it’s ours. Our mugs. Our shoes by the door.
His gym bag on the hook and my bluetooth speaker on the counter and the friendship bracelets—new ones, teal and yellow, tied on the morning we moved in—hanging from the bathroom mirror.
We are sober. Four years, one month, nine days for me.
Four years, three months, two days for him.
The count matters. Darla’s sessions are twice a month now.
The meds are managed and stable. The cravings still arrive but they arrive quieter and leave faster.
We go back to Edgewood every few weeks and sit in Darla’s circle with the new Level One kids—the ones who are where we were, shaking and lying and performing “okay”—and we tell our story.
Not to inspire. To prove that the other side exists.
X does the same with teenagers. A program he started with Darla—visiting high schools, talking about addiction and mental health and the lie that men don’t cry.
He stands in gymnasiums and says things like “I found my mother in a closet and I didn’t talk about it for two years and it almost killed me.
” The rooms go silent. Then he says “ask for help” and the silence changes. From shock to something like hope.
The fight. Right. The fight.
This is the semi-pro qualifier. If Xander wins tonight, he moves up. The contract doubles. The career takes its next step.
The ref signals. The bell rings. The crowd surges.
Xander comes out of his corner controlled and precise, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
He’s bigger now—the gym and the nutrition and the sobriety filling out a frame that was always meant to be powerful.
More tattoos. The one on his ribs I traced this morning—the teal and yellow threads of a friendship bracelet rendered in ink, permanent, the promise that can’t be cut off by cops or sealed in evidence bags.
His opponent is bigger. They’re always bigger. X doesn’t fight big—he fights smart. Marco’s training. The footwork. The discipline of a boy who used to swing until something connected and has learned to wait for the opening.
I’m on my feet. “COME ON, X! HANDS UP, BABY!”
My mom: “Penny, sit down, you’re blocking the—”
“MOM, HE’S FIGHTING. I AM NOT SITTING DOWN.”
My dad, to my mom: “Leave her. She’s managing.”
The opponent charges. X sidesteps. Clean. The crowd roars. The opponent swings—wide, sloppy. X lands a body shot. The opponent doubles. X follows—body, body, head. The combination Marco designed. The opponent staggers.
“YES! YES, BABY! FINISH HIM!” I am screaming. Standing on my chair. The girl who changed her major to sports management watching her boyfriend execute the combination she watched him drill a thousand times in my family’s basement.
Dad , also on his chair: “THAT’S MY BOY! THAT’S MY SON!”
Mom, filming: “Gideon, you’re going to fall.”
The opponent throws a desperate hook. X ducks. Then the kick—low, hard, the knee. The same move from the Bridgeport cage, refined and precise now. The opponent drops. The ref counts. He tries to stand. Buckles. Falls.
EMTs rush in. X kneels beside him—not gloating. Checking on the man he just defeated. Because the fighter he became knows that what happens after the fight defines you more than the fight itself.
The ref grabs X’s hand. “XANDER ANDERSON IS YOUR WINNER!”
The arena erupts. And I am screaming so hard no sound comes out—just the shape of a scream, my hands on my face, the tears falling because the boy from the treehouse just won in a Vegas arena and my body cannot contain how proud I am.
He finds me. Through twelve thousand people and a wall of cameras. Grabs me. Lifts me over the barrier. I’m in the cage—heels on the mat, his sweat on my dress. The ref puts the belt on him and his mouth finds mine and the kiss is salt and adrenaline and everything.
Then he turns me around. My parents are in the cage—Dad pulled Mom over the barrier because Gideon MacHale does not let ropes separate him from his children during important moments.
And Xander drops to one knee. Twelve thousand people. Silent. The cameras pivoting. The world narrowing to a boy on one knee holding a box toward a girl with mascara already running.
“Marry me, Pretty Penny?”
The ring. Adeena’s ring. Rose gold. Art deco—1920s, the emerald-cut center stone with a diamond halo and milgrain detailing along the band.
But X changed something. On either side of the center stone: two small gems. An aquamarine—teal, the ocean.
A citrine—yellow, the sun. The friendship bracelet rendered in precious stones.
The promise from the treehouse set into his mother’s ring.
I drop to my knees. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes!”
He slides it on. His hands shaking—the hands that just won a fight, shaking because putting a ring on a girl’s finger is scarier than anything in a cage.
“I love you, Penelope. Forever.”
“I love you, Xander. Always.”
He picks me up. Carries me around the ring. The crowd screaming. My legs kicking. My dad crying. Mom hugging a security guard she’s never met.
“SHE SAID YES! I’M GONNA MARRY PENNY!”
Backstage. I stare at the ring. The aquamarine and citrine catching the fluorescent light.
“It was my mom’s.” Xander sits beside me, clean now, showered. “I had a jeweler add the stones. Teal and yellow. I wanted us and her in the same ring.”
I pull out my phone. FaceTime. Iz picks up on the first ring. His face fills the screen—the grin, still warm, still room-brightening. He’s in what looks like a dorm room.
“SHOW ME.”
I hold up my hand. The aquamarine and citrine catching the phone light.
Iz’s face does three things: joy, then something softer, then the grin again. “Holy shit, Penny. That’s Adeena’s ring.”
“With the bracelet stones.”
“With the—” His voice catches. “Of course he did. That is the most Xander Anderson thing I’ve ever heard.”
X leans into the frame. “Yo, Iz.”
“Congrats, brother. Seriously. I’m happy for you both.”
Iz looks at me. “I love you, Penny. I am so proud of you. Both of you.”
“I love you too, Iz.”
The grin. Then: “But Vegas pact is still on the table. If this doesn’t work out—I’m next in line. Thirty. Elvis. Playlist you curated.”
X: “You got your own girl, Walsh.”
He chuckles. “Damn right I do.”
We hang up. X pulls me against him. I call Cat. She picks up screaming.
“LET ME SEE IT.”
I hold up my hand. She screams again. Kaiden in the background: “That’s clean. X did good.”
Cat: “I’m wicked happy for you, babe. We came from some seriously shitty situations and look at us now.”
“I know. We really did.”
She laughs. “Now go home and get some sleep. We have a wedding to plan and I am NOT wearing a bridesmaid dress that makes me look like a couch.”
“Deal.”
Xander and I head to back to the hotel, my parents promising we’ll celebrate tomorrow.
In the hotel room. X falls asleep in thirty seconds and I sit on the balcony, vegas below me. The ring in the neon glow. The aquamarine and citrine. Teal and yellow. The ocean and the sun.
We made it. Not cleanly. Not without scars. But we made it. Sober. Together. Alive.
EIGHT YEARS LATER
Cat and Kaiden’s place in DC is exactly what you’d expect: sharp on the outside, warm on the inside.
A Georgetown brownstone with a navy door and window boxes Cat fills with flowers she pretends Kaiden planted. No kids yet—just the golden retriever, Murphy, who has claimed the couch and will not be moved.
We’re all here. All of us. Eight years since senior year.
Eight years of group chats and FaceTimes and birthdays that turn into weekends that turn into holidays that turn into family vacations.
Flights across the country because somebody’s having a bad week and the group chat said “I’m coming” and nobody questioned it.
Chosen family. The kind that keeps growing because the people in it refuse to let distance or time do the thing it does to most friendships: fade.
We are sober. Eight years, one month, nine days for me. Eight years, three months, two days for him. Still counting. Always counting.
Xander signed his pro contract six months ago.
I negotiated it—sat across a table from three lawyers and a promoter with my Yale degree and my spreadsheets and walked out with terms that made the promoter call me “terrifying” and Xander call me “hot.” Four years of semi-pro, and now: professional MMA.
His name on posters. My name on the contracts.
Our daughter, Adeena Isabell Anderson—Deena—is on X’s lap on the couch. Two years old. His gray eyes, my blonde hair, the stubbornness of two survivors who produced a tiny dictator. She’s tracing the friendship bracelet tattoo on his ribs. “Pretty, Daddy.” He melts. Every time.
I also manage three bands. Indie. Small. The dream—alive, growing, built on the stubbornness of a woman who told her Yale advisor she wanted to manage bands and athletes and was told it was “niche” and said “niche is another word for underserved market.”
Ryan arrives with his wife and their hoard of children.
Three under five, their eight year old, and Tobias who is now a sulking teenager.
He walks through Cat’s navy door looking like he hasn’t slept in centuries and wouldn’t trade a second.
His wife catches a falling sippy cup. The twins find Murphy and the chaos multiplies.
Ryan grins at me—the grin of a man building a big family because the woman he loves never had one.
Danny arrives late. Always late now. His butterfly beside him—the girl with the braids and the look that could end wars, one hand on her stomach like she’s guarding something the world doesn’t get to touch twice.
They walk in and the room adjusts. His hand on the small of her back.
They are loud and intense and argue about everything and love each other with a ferocity that makes the rest of us feel underdressed.
Danny is different now. The quiet boy found his voice.
He forgave Cat. He forgave me. He forgave Xander.
The forgiving took two years and a lot of slammed doors.
But he’s here. Hugging Xander hard enough to crack a rib. Here.
Iz arrives last. And he is not alone. His dove. That’s all he calls her. She walks in behind him—quiet, watchful, her hand in his. Two people who clawed their way to each other, a love story for the ages.
He catches my eye across the room. The grin. Eight years and it still brightens every room. He walks over. Leans against the doorframe beside me. “So.”
“So.”
“We’re both married now.”
“We are.”
“Which technically means Vegas is void.”
“Technically.”
A beat. The grin. “Vegas is always on the table, Penny. Always.”
“Always, Iz.”
We laugh. The laugh of two people who share a love story and a heartbreak and a friendship that outlasted both. He pulls me into a hug—brief, warm. His dove watches from across the room. She doesn’t look jealous. She looks like a woman who knows exactly what Iz and I are and isn’t threatened by it.
Cat’s table extends. Chairs from the garage. Deena in X’s lap eating pasta with her hands. Ryan’s twins fighting over bread. Danny’s butterfly laughing at something Cat said. Iz’s dove quiet beside him, her hand on his knee. Murphy eating something off the floor nobody wants to identify.
Eight years. Birthdays and holidays and babies and three-a.m. FaceTimes.
Fight weekends in Vegas where the whole group shows up.
Summers at the MacHale house with the porch light on.
This is what we built. From the rubble. From the treehouse and the warehouse and the cage.
A family. Not the kind you’re born into. The kind you choose. Again and again.
Xander leans over. “You happy, pretty girl?”
I look around the table. At the faces. At the families we became. “Yeah. I’m really happy.”
He kisses my temple. Deena grabs his hair. He winces. I laugh. Cat throws a napkin at us. Danny mutters something that makes his butterfly snort. Ryan’s twins knock over a glass and his wife catches it. Iz looks at his dove and smiles—quiet, private.
I look down at my hand. Adeena’s ring. The aquamarine and citrine catching the candlelight. And on my wrist—still, always, forever—the friendship bracelet. Teal and yellow. Faded. Frayed. Still holding.
The same bracelet. The one I tied on at seven. The one that survived everything.
The ocean is stronger than anything. The sun never gives up. Forever and always.