Epilogue #2
“Always,” she whispered. “God, I still want you like I did the first night.”
Sloane smiled, pressing a hand to Catherine’s cheek. “But now you let me see you.”
“I didn’t know I could be seen and still be loved.”
“You’re not just loved,” Sloane murmured. “You’re cherished.”
Silence stretched between them again, but this time, it was full. Catherine’s breathing slowed, and Sloane stroked her hair back from her face, watching the woman who had once been too afraid to even say the word love now wrapped in it completely.
This wasn’t the honeymoon phase. It wasn’t lust or adrenaline. It was the slow-burn devotion of two women who had burned themselves down to ash and rebuilt a life out of it.
Sloane’s voice was quiet. “Do you still believe we were a risk?”
Catherine opened her eyes and met hers, her lips curving in a sleepy smile.
“No,” she said softly. “We were a promise.”
The clink of teacups rang gently through the living room, laughter trailing behind it like the scent of the lemon verbena that bloomed outside their kitchen window.
Olivia sat cross-legged on the sun-warmed floor, flipping through a photo album with Sloane while Catherine leaned in the doorway, arms folded loosely over her chest, a smile tugging at her mouth.
The house was full, not with noise, but with the kind of peace that comes when wounds stop bleeding and start to heal.
It had been five years since the accident. Since everything changed.
There were still scars; Catherine could trace them, both inside and out. But now, there were also Saturday brunches with Olivia, occasional late-night texts from Roz with sarcastic medical memes, and, more recently, brightly colored postcards from around the world signed: Love, Lil + Rebecca.
Lillian, the youngest Harrington, had carved a new life for herself far from the clinical sterility of Harrington Memorial. Now she and Rebecca were running a medical outreach program on a small island in the Philippines. Her letters came regularly—messy, joyful, and always full of love.
Catherine held the latest one now. The envelope was thick with Polaroids, one of Lillian wearing oversized sunglasses and holding a stethoscope to a chicken, another of Rebecca teaching a small group of children how to clean wounds properly.
In one, the two of them sat side by side on the edge of a dock, feet in the water, their foreheads touching like no one else existed.
“She looks so damn happy,” Catherine murmured.
“She is,” Sloane replied, chin resting on Catherine’s shoulder. “And you are too.”
Catherine didn’t argue.
Olivia glanced up from the album. “She said she might be in Madrid next spring. Wants us all to meet there.”
“All?” Catherine raised a brow.
Olivia smiled, soft and warm. “She said she misses her sisters. And you’re one of the few people who ever truly believed in her.”
That settled deep in Catherine’s chest. She had spent so long feeling distant from her youngest sister, unsure where they fit in each other’s lives. But time, and shared pain, had stitched them closer.
As for their mother, not much had changed.
She came to holidays and posed for family photos, but her conversations with Catherine remained clipped, her approval thin as gauze. Still, Catherine no longer needed it. Not when she could walk into her home and be greeted with warmth, not wariness.
Roz, too, had changed. Slowly. Grudgingly.
She still rolled her eyes at anything resembling emotional vulnerability, but she’d taken to checking in on Sloane’s gallery shows, always under the guise of “networking” or “supporting the arts,” never admitting she actually enjoyed the pieces.
But she always left with something new for her office wall.
The Harringtons were far from picture-perfect. But they were healing. Not as a whole, but in the connections that mattered.
And Catherine, once the loneliest woman in the room, was now never alone.
The sky was a canvas of dusky lavender and gold, the final brushstrokes of a spring day softening into night. The stars blinked alive overhead, one by one, as Catherine stepped out onto the back patio with two mugs of tea and a small velvet box tucked into her pocket.
Sloane was already outside, curled up on the porch swing wrapped in a light blanket, sketchpad on her lap. Her pencil moved in steady lines, catching the curve of a flower or the bend of Catherine’s shadow from across the patio.
Catherine handed her a mug and slipped down beside her. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. There was no need. The silence was easy now, companionship humming beneath every breath, every glance, every small gesture.
Sloane finally looked over. “You’re doing that thing where you think so loudly it practically echoes.”
Catherine smiled faintly. “I was thinking about us.”
Sloane’s eyes sparkled. “A safe subject, I hope.”
“The safest,” Catherine said, voice low.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the small box. No grand speeches. No orchestrated proposal. Just something simple and real.
Sloane’s breath caught as Catherine opened it to reveal a delicate ring, white gold with a single blue sapphire at its center.
Catherine’s hand trembled slightly. “I’ve done a lot of things out of fear. Out of legacy. Out of duty. But you’re the first thing I’ve ever chosen just because I wanted to.”
Sloane didn’t say anything at first. Her eyes shimmered. Then she slipped the sketchpad aside, took the ring, and pressed a kiss to Catherine’s palm.
“You’re not just something I wanted, Catherine,” Sloane said softly. “You’re everything I didn’t know I needed. And I’d say yes to you a hundred times over.”
They stood together, hand in hand, as the wind moved gently through the garden, rustling the petals of wildflowers they’d planted side by side last summer.
They had made their own home. Their own rhythm. Their own kind of forever.
Later, as they lay in bed, Catherine’s head on Sloane’s chest, fingers tracing idle circles on her skin, Catherine whispered the words they hadn’t said in a while, but had always lived beneath everything else.
“We’ve made our own legacy.”
Sloane kissed the top of her head. “And it’s better than I ever imagined.”
Outside, the stars blinked their quiet approval. And inside, wrapped in each other’s arms, Catherine and Sloane didn’t just dream about the future.
They were living it.