Epilogue
Rowan
“You ready?” I hear her voice carry over the wind and chatter behind us. When I look over I find her eyes on me and a wide smile on her face.
“What happens if I say no?” I laugh, nervously.
“We step down off the ledge and try again another day.” She’s still smiling, like it wouldn’t bother her one bit to not do this, but I can also see the excitement in her eyes.
“Maybe I’m not ready," I say more to myself than her, but she hears me anyway.
“But what if you are?” she asks in return. There’s no judgement in her voice, only love and affection.
I don’t have time to react to the question before the man in front of us starts counting down from ten. Millie is about twenty feet away from me, further down the bridge. The plan is to jump together.
Somewhere along the way her bucket list became our bucket list. And I’ll be damned if she checks one off the list without me.
Don’t be a pussy, Rowan.
“THREE, TWO, ONE!” And there it is, I don’t give myself a second to change my mind.
She’s not doing this alone. My foot steps off the ledge and suddenly it feels like I’m floating, but only for a split second.
Then it feels like I’m falling, the air passing by me so quickly that if I didn’t already have my eyes shut, I would have slammed them closed.
But that isn’t right, I want to see her.
I force my eyes open, even though I’m terrified of watching the ground rush towards me just so I can look over at her. I want to see her face, her reaction. I watch in fascination as her wild curls fly all around her pretty face.
And when our eyes connect I feel the happiness pouring out of them. She feels alive and that makes me giddy. It doesn’t matter that it feels like my heart is going to leap right out of my chest the closer we come to the ground. Or that my palms are sweaty, and my breath feels short and panicked.
“You’re doing it, Rowan,” she screams from across the distance.
And she’s right. I may be having a mild panic attack, but it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Suddenly I feel tension on the cord as my speed starts to slow. The water below is becoming dangerously close. I slam my eyes shut and wait for the flashback to take me back to that horrible day, but it never comes.
My body is rigid with tension, because I’m suspended a hundred feet in the air by only an elastic cord. Not because I’m worried I’m going to go plunging into the cold water below. And that takes me by surprise.
It’s not at all what I expected but exactly what I needed. I lend myself over to the freeing feeling that has taken over me, letting go of all the fear and apprehension.
I holler with joy, letting my voice carry down the stream into the wind and to her. The tension in my chest finally releases and my eyes can finally focus on the rushing water below. The trees are still kind of a blur, but I can make out their distinct shapes a little better now.
But there is one thing that is vivid and clear. Her. It will always be her.
Millie’s cheers of joy join my own as we hang there, suspended in the air, high above the water.
“That was awesome!” I holler.
I can hear Millie’s giggles. The sound makes my smile grow even wider.
I didn’t realize it was possible to fall even harder for her because she has owned my heart since the moment she offered me that water bottle, but it happens. I feel another piece of my heart surrendering freely.
As soon as we are lowered to the ground I waste no time standing and running towards her. I pick her up by her waist and swing her around before pulling her close.
“I love you,” I say between soft, sweet kisses.
“I love you more,” she says between soft giggles.
“That’s not possible,” I argue, because it’s not. Nothing could be bigger or more encompassing than the love I have for her, not even her love for me.
“Anything’s possible.”
And that’s true, this past year has been a direct testament to that. “But not this,” I say as my chest swells with emotion.
“We will just have to agree to disagree then, Rowan Pierce.” She wraps her hand around the back of my neck and pulls me in for a kiss that should be illegal, it feels so good.
“Whatever you say, Daredevil but we both know who’s right.”
She laughs, playfully swatting at my chest.
Up until I stepped off that bridge, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do this.
I wanted to, with everything in me, for her but I still wasn’t sure. Now I realize how much she’s healed a part of my heart that I thought would never be the same.
She makes me better. Braver. Whole.
A life with Millie St. James in it, is a life worth savoring and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.
Savoring every minute.
I'm one lucky bastard.
The End