Epilogue
Freedom.
The word is a joke on my tongue and a lie on everyone else’s.
Freedom doesn’t exist for people like Cassidy and me. It’s a sadistic thought dangled in front of us like a carrot. Just enough to keep us going. But it’s the system that digs its claws deeper inside.
In Cassidy’s mind he would say, “We are free, Firefly.”
But what is freedom when you have to spend months on the run? What is freedom when I’m scared to be in public? What is freedom, when, in my own home, I still feel the need to be on alert.
No. That’s not freedom.
In those woods, drenched in pouring rain and adrenaline, I made a choice. With the pistol in my hand, I looked at Cassidy and his smoky eyes begged me to choose him. Because no one has ever put him first—no one has ever wanted him.
Except for me.
And when someone like that looks at you like you’re the only reason they’ve survived this long . . .
It does something to you.
Maybe that’s hard to understand. Maybe if you’ve always been chosen, you don’t get it.
But when you grow up like we did, being seen becomes its own kind of drug.
You learn to shape yourself into whatever gets you noticed—makes you feel wanted.
And once someone finally sees you, you start to believe that’s love.
The world sees those like Cassidy as a stain, but I see the boy who would braid my hair after I showered. The one who would make me laugh until my belly hurt. The one who once scaled a building with me to escape the police. The one who kept me alive through a dozen violent nights.
The one who believes that freedom is worth any price.
I’ve always been able to see through his rough exterior. I could sense his desire to be loved even when he didn’t know how to ask for it.
But love doesn’t always mean staying. Love isn’t always enough to fix the cracks that run through someone’s soul like fault lines. Sometimes love is the hand that steadies you.
But other times it’s the weight that keeps you drowning.
Cassidy is both.
He made me feel seen in a world that’s built to erase girls like me—girls born unlucky. Girls who never got a childhood. Girls who were taken away at eight years old because their mother left a cigarette burning on the couch, too high to notice the flames licking up the wall.
I remember watching the flames and thinking, At least it’s warm.
Maybe this isn’t the story you were expecting. Maybe you were hoping for some sort of closure—a clear ending tied in a bow.
But that’s not my story .
My story is complicated, messy. It’s full of broken things that are beautifully tangled together.
It took me a long time to realize that freedom isn’t in a getaway car or a country with no extradition. It’s not a cabin in the woods or a false name.
It’s waking up and knowing you made a choice—your choice.
It’s not being loved. It’s loving yourself enough to let go.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking what Cassidy needed. I started asking what I needed. It seemed selfish in that moment in the woods—it still does.
But being selfish is just the beginning of healing. When you finally stop letting guilt stop you from doing what’s necessary.
That being said, I don’t know what healing looks like, not really. I don’t know if I’ll ever be whole, or if that was ever the point.
But I know this: I chose something different.
Whether I chose to save the only man who’s ever loved me, or if he’s buried in the woods—only I know the truth.
And maybe that’s enough.
Because now, for the first time, I can see a future. Not a perfect one.
But mine.
And whatever comes next—I’ll choose it. Not because I have to, but because I can.
And that . . . that’s freedom.