Epilogue #3
“No, it’s not.” He presses a kiss to my collarbone. “Staring is passive.” Another kiss, lower. “Admiring is active.” Lower still, his lips tracing the curve of my breast. “Admiring involves intent.”
“What’s your intent?”
He looks up at me through his lashes. The heat in his gaze makes my breath catch.
“To make you feel as beautiful as you looked walking toward me today.”
He spends the next hour doing exactly that.
His mouth maps every part of me - my throat, my breasts, the new fullness of my belly that I’m still learning to love. He kisses the stretch marks that have started to appear, traces them with his tongue like they’re precious rather than proof of how my body is changing.
“These are my favorite,” he murmurs against my skin.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” He looks up at me, and his eyes are bright. “These are proof that you’re growing our daughter. These are proof that you chose me. Chose us.” He presses another kiss to the curve of my belly. “These are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”
I cry. Just a little. Blame the hormones.
He doesn’t comment, just keeps kissing, keeps touching, keeps showing me what words can’t capture.
When he finally slides inside me, it’s slow. Careful. His eyes locked on mine, watching for any sign of discomfort, adjusting his angle to accommodate the belly between us.
“Okay?” he breathes.
“More than okay.”
“If I need to-”
“Jayden. I’m pregnant, not fragile.”
He grins. “Yes, ma’am.”
After that, there’s no more talking.
Just his body moving with mine, finding the rhythm we’ve perfected over years - but different now. Slower. More deliberate. Like we have all the time in the world. Like this is just the beginning.
The moonlight spills across the bed as I arch into him, his name on my lips, his hands anchoring me to him. I shatter once, twice, and he follows me over the edge with a groan that sounds like prayer.
***
Later, tangled in sheets that will definitely need washing, I trace patterns on his chest.
“You know what I realized today?” I say.
“What?”
“I never thanked you.”
He props himself up on an elbow, looking down at me with genuine confusion. “For what?”
“For the wildflowers. Every single day, for several months. Even when I was at Ellen’s, refusing to see you. Even when I filed for divorce. Even when I was so angry I could barely say your name.” I meet his eyes. “You never stopped.”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“I know. But saying it and doing it are different things.” I reach up, touch his face. “You proved it. Every day. You didn’t just tell me you’d changed - you showed me.”
He turns his head, presses a kiss to my palm. “I meant every flower.”
“I know you did. That’s why I’m here.”
We’re quiet for a moment, just breathing together. The ocean crashes in the distance. The house settles around us with small creaks and groans - familiar now, comfortable. The sound of home.
“What are you working on?” he asks suddenly. “The new screenplay. You haven’t told me what it’s about.”
I smile against his chest. “A woman who loses herself in her marriage.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It should.” I look up at him. “She has to find her way back. Figure out who she is outside of the relationship she built her whole identity around.”
“How does it end?”
“I’m still figuring that out.” I pause. “But I think… I think she doesn’t end up alone. I think she learns that saving yourself doesn’t mean you have to do it by yourself. That letting people love you isn’t the same as losing yourself in them.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then: “Can I read it? When it’s ready?”
“You’ll be the first.”
***
The sun is starting to rise when I finally drift toward sleep.
My hand rests on my belly, feeling our daughter shift and settle. Jayden’s arm is wrapped around me, his breathing slow and deep. The room is warm with morning light, painting everything in shades of gold and rose.
I think about the girl I was at seventeen - the one who sat on this very beach and dreamed of changing the world. Who wrote in notebooks about movies and moonlight and a boy who looked at her like she was made of stars.
I lost her for a while. Buried her under expectations and image and the slow erosion of becoming invisible in my own life.
But she’s here now. In this bed. In this house that smells like ocean air and sounds like home. In this body that’s growing a daughter who will never have to wonder if she matters.
The wildflowers are already on my nightstand - a fresh bouquet, left there sometime yesterday while I was getting ready. He must have done it before the ceremony. Before the vows. Before everything.
I reach out and touch one of the petals. Soft. Real. Proof.
Some habits, it turns out, are worth keeping.
Jayden shifts in his sleep, pulls me closer, murmurs something unintelligible against my hair. His hand finds mine in the space between us, fingers intertwining.
This is us now. Not perfect. Not fixed. But choosing each other. Over and over. Even in sleep.
I close my eyes.
And for the first time in years, I dream of the future instead of the past.
THE END