epilogue
Jules
Months later…
The Blankenship family gatherings have a very specific and undeniable gravitational field.
You arrive intending to stay two hours and somehow it's dark outside. Someone has produced a guitar (usually Ethan, Kelsie’s husband), Mimz is on her third glass of wine telling a story about Pops that he is actively trying to interrupt.
There is always more food than the number of people present could reasonably account for. There is always, without fail, a moment where everyone is talking at once, and somehow the conversation still makes sense.
I used to find this overwhelming.
Now I find it—and I say this as someone who spent the better part of her adult life treating closeness like an infectious disease—I find it the closest feeling of home I've ever had. Even more so than the little family Hope and Cora and I built. Of course it helps that they’re usually here too. Because now we’re all family.
"You're smiling at nothing again," Gracie says, appearing beside me with two glasses of sweet tea.
"I'm smiling at something," I say. "I'm just not going to tell you what."
"Is it Payton?"
"It's the potato salad."
"It's Payton," she says, satisfied, and hands me the tea.
It's Payton.
He's across the yard right now, crouched down next to his Uncle Graham’s step-son, who has gotten into some kind of dispute with a lawn ornament and is explaining his grievances at length to whoever will listen.
Payton is listening. Fully, unhurriedly, in the way he does with kids that still catches me off guard sometimes, even though I've seen it dozens of times.
He listens like whatever this child has to say is the most important thing currently happening in the yard.
It probably is, to him.
That's the thing about Payton Blankenship that I didn't understand when I was busy trying to keep him in a very specific box. He's not patient because he's performing patience. He's patient because he genuinely, constitutionally believes that people are worth the time it takes to really see them.
Every time I realize that, I feel a bit like the Grinch whose heart has grown.
He believed that about me before I believed it about myself.
I'm still working on the believing-it-about-myself part. But I'm working on it, which is more than I could have said six months ago, so I'm choosing to count that as progress.
Kelsie drops into the empty lawn chair next to me, plate in hand. She follows my gaze across the yard with an expression that is pure Blankenship—warm but also a little smug.
"He's annoyingly good with kids," she says.
"I know."
“I don’t think he would have ever told Mom and Dad he didn’t want to work the ranch and instead wanted to teach without you.”
“That’s kind of you to say.”
“Not kind. Just true. I'm glad you're here, Jules." She says it simply. "I mean that. You're good for him. But also just—I'm glad you're here. With us."
My chest does that thing where it tightens. That sensation I used to avoid at all costs. I let it roll through me.
"I'm glad I'm here too," I say.
The sun is going down when Payton finds me, the yard settling into that particular gold-and-shadow hour.
"Walk with me?" he says.
We end up at the edge of the yard where the grass meets the tree line, far enough from the main gathering for quiet without being absent. I can still hear the overlapping noise of his family behind us, Oliver laughing at something, Mimz's voice carrying over everything the way it always does.
Payton has his hands in his pockets, which he does when he's thinking particularly hard.
I've learned his tells. He's learned mine.
We've been learning each other in the small, daily, accumulated way that I used to think sounded exhausting. Now I understand it’s just what it looks like when someone is actually let in.
"Can I show you something?" he says.
"That's an ominous opening."
"It's not ominous." But there's something in his expression—not nervous exactly, maybe some excitement laced with apprehension. "Jules."
He unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt.
I have seen Payton Blankenship without his shirt on many times. I am, in general, a fan of the experience. But this is different—he's pulling the collar aside, exposing the left side of his chest, just above his heart, and I look at what's there and my brain stops working completely.
It's my handwriting.
XOXO, Yours
Jules
Small, clean, and permanent, right above his heart, in my exact looping script.
"Payton." My voice comes out strange. "When did you—"
“Yesterday.” He buttons his shirt back up, unhurried. "I know it's—I'm not trying to pressure you with it. I didn't do it to make a statement or to make you feel like you owe me anything. I did it because I wanted to, and because I figured by now you know I don't do things halfway."
"You tattooed my name on your chest."
"Above my heart, technically. Precision matters."
"Payton—"
"I love you," he says. "I love you and I know exactly what I want and I'm not in any hurry, but I also think you should know where I'm headed, since we're both the kind of people who appreciate being told the truth directly."
He reaches into his pocket.
“So. Jules Long.” He opens his hand. There's a ring in it—the single most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen.
It’s clearly an antique, judging by the filigree carved into the gold.
Then a center stone in a bezel setting. "I'm not asking you to decide tonight.
I'm not asking you to have an answer right now.
I'm just asking you to know that this exists, and that it's yours whenever you want it, and that I'll be here holding it for as long as it takes. "
I look at the ring.
I look at him.
I think about a drawer full of notes and my porch steps where I finally stopped running. I think about a front yard and the letter I wrote, and the way he pressed it against his chest when he read it, right over the place where my handwriting now lives inked permanently into his skin.
I think about what home feels like when you find it by accident and decide to stay on purpose.
"I don't need until later," I say.
Something shifts in his face. "Jules—"
"I said I wasn't going to run." I reach out and take the ring from his open hand.
"I meant it. I mean it every day. I'm not—Payton, I'm not standing here with my heart completely remodeled by you and this family and this whole enormous inconvenient thing and waiting for a different moment.
This is the moment." I look at him steadily, both feet on the ground.
“Also, won’t be allowing that gorgeous rock to live in your pocket it when it can live on my hand! So, yes."
“Technically, I didn’t actually ask you anything,” he says, his grin cocky and a little crooked.
“Too late, cowboy. The ring is on my finger. You have to marry me now.”
His face splits in a massaive grin. Then he pulls me into him, my face settled against his chest, his arms around my body.
Behind us, across the yard, there is a moment of quiet.
Then Oliver whoops.
Then cheers and applause.
Later, when the yard has mostly cleared and most of the family has gone back to their respective places. I'm sitting on the porch steps with Payton's arm around me. I find a folded piece of paper tucked into my jacket pocket.
I don't know when he put it there.
I open it.
You stayed. You said yes. I'm keeping you forever, just so you know.
XOXO, Yours
— Payton
I turn the note over, pull the pen out of Payton’s pocket and write down my own message. I refold it and tuck into his shirt pocket while he's mid-sentence talking to Oliver.
Payton pulls out the square. Unfolds it.
XOXO, Yours. Always.
—Jules
“Y’all are weird,” Oliver says. “You know you’re sitting next to each other. Just use your words like normal people.”
Cora appears at his side and smacks him in the chest. “You leave them alone.”
Payton and I exchange glances and then I lay my head on his shoulder. This is what it feels like when you stop leaving.
It feels like staying.
It feels like home.