Epilogue
Chapter twenty-seven
The End?
The backyard looked nothing like the battlefield it had been when we were kids.
No abandoned bikes, no half-crushed juice boxes, no siblings screaming about who cheated in tag.
Tonight, the grass stood trimmed and polite, fairy lights dripping from the maple tree like someone had shaken the Milky Way loose right over our heads.
Kayla stood at the top of the makeshift aisle, a trail of wildflowers curling around her feet, and exhaled the kind of breath reserved for brides in movies who finally get their happily ever after.
My brother waited beneath the arch he’d built from branches and flowers gathered around town, tapping his foot like he fully expected her to bolt at the last second.
When she reached him, my brother brushed his thumb over her hand with a tenderness that made the whole backyard fall quiet, as if the air itself were holding its breath.
Our dad stood behind them, chest puffed with pride, delivering the ceremony with a seriousness so earnest it nearly made me laugh.
I caught myself glancing at the empty chair beside me, and a small smile tugged at my lips.
I’d kept it open for him—for Jamie—because even if he wasn’t physically here, I knew he wouldn’t miss this day.
The hurting would never fully go away, but it had shifted into something softer, something that wasn’t pain anymore.
Their vows were simple. Honest. Awkward in the sweetest possible way, the kind you only get from two people who survived adolescence side by side and still chose each other anyway.
And then my brother slid the ring onto her finger.
Jamie’s ring.
Once part of my story.
Now part of theirs.
It’s strange how the past can slip so gracefully into the future when you’re not fighting it anymore. How something that once felt like the end of my world could become the beginning of theirs.
When they kissed, the whole yard erupted like fireworks, loud, warm, and just chaotic enough to feel like home.
And then, in true small-town fashion, everyone sprinted toward the reception the moment the promise of cake and booze became real.
The canopy over the tables looked exactly like the backyard forts we used to build, if you swapped out blankets and stolen bed sheets for twinkle lights and linen.
Same cramped chaos, same dim glow, same absolute disregard for personal space. Some things really don’t change.
Then someone tapped a glass.
My name rose into the air like a question I’d forgotten to study for.
Of course. Maid of honor. Sister of the groom.
A doomed combination.
It was practically guaranteed I’d be giving a speech; I’d just hoped I could sneak away before the glass-clinking brigade got organized. No such luck.
I stood from my seat and brushed off my terrible puffy pink dress, the one I’d been forced to wear because of “the color scheme” and some horrific Pinterest board none of us had the courage to protest. When I looked around, the yard felt smaller somehow, like all our childhood memories had squeezed in around us, watching, waiting to see if I’d trip over my own feet.
“I’m not the best with words; ironic, being a writer and all,” I said, already hearing the wobble in my voice. “So, I apologize in advance for whatever mess I’m about to unleash.”
I fumbled with a tiny stack of note cards, the speech I’d spent weeks drafting, scribbling out, rewriting, hating, rewriting again, and still somehow despising in this moment.
I looked at Kayla and Lucas, their faces glowing, their cheeks lifted so high it was a miracle they could still see, their arms wrapped around each other like they’d been knitted together.
Then my eyes drifted to my purse hanging off the back of my chair.
Inside was the first copy of my book. The words Jamie believed in more than I did.
I set the note cards down on the table. They made a soft, defeated flutter. Then I reached into my bag and pulled out the soft-spined book, holding it the way you hold something fragile that somehow survived a storm.
“A friend of ours couldn’t be here tonight,” I said, my voice steadier now. “So, I thought I’d bring a part of him to us.”
I opened the book.
The last page waited for me like a familiar doorway, one I’d been afraid to walk through, until now.
“For Jamie,” I said.
And I read.
Time has a way
of pulling us forward,
not gently,
not always kindly,
but steadily,
like gravity teaching the tide
when to rise again.
And we hold on to the moments
that make us,
the ones that break us,
the ones that mend us,
the ones that remind us
that love is still a risk
worth taking.
Some chapters arrive early,
some too late,
and some end
before we realize
we were meant
to hold onto them;
But love doesn’t slip away
when the clock stops ticking.
It lingers,
in the corners of memory,
in the soft ache it leaves behind,
in the gentle proof
that true love,
when it chooses you,
always finds a way to stay.
And maybe time,
in its quiet mercy,
shows us this:
love outlives every ending.
The last page
is never truly goodbye,
just the moment you breathe
before the next story starts.
When I closed the book, the backyard held its breath. Fireflies drifted between the chairs like slow-moving sparks.
I looked at my brother. “It turns out the past doesn’t trap us,” I said, my voice steady. “It shapes us. And the future isn’t something we wait for, it’s something love helps us walk toward. So here’s to the two of you… to every moment that brought you here, and every tomorrow waiting to unfold.”
Applause rose like a warm tide. I stepped back, letting the night settle around me, the chilled air, the old maple trees, the ghost of the boy who breathed life back into me, and brought my brother back to his greatest love.
Love had opened their forever.
Love had softened my yesterday.
And love was offering all of us a brand-new tomorrow.