E P I L O G U E
Africa
October
Relationships are never perfect and the hard truth is that most of them will end.
End brutally.
I never thought I would be the girl who had the strength to choose herself, but sometimes we can surprise even ourselves.
If not the most important thing Charlie taught me, it’s pretty close, and it’s that I am enough. And I have always been enough.
I deserve to be loved, and I never need to apologize for who I am.
I never need to feel ashamed or insignificant.
For all the wrong ways, we both went about things, to his core he is good.
But I couldn’t be the reason he heals. The reason he chooses to quit fighting. He has to do that for himself. He has to choose to forgive and make peace because only then can he live a life that is meaningful. And if I were a stronger person, I would have been able to tell him that to his face. But there are limits to everything and if I looked at him just one more time… I would have never found it in me to leave.
To do the right thing for him… and for me.
To me that’s love .
I love him so much that I am willing to let him go in order for him to heal.
I am willing to suffer for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes.
I am willing to watch as time passes us both by, while we both move on and take other lovers, as long as it means that Charlie chooses himself.
And I finally love myself enough to choose me.
To choose me wholly as I am.
We can’t heal each other. Not entirely.
Honesty is a boundary that no matter how much I wish I could cross, I can’t. Not even for Charlie.
And I’ll have to work every day to forgive myself for that.
We can’t give each other what we deserve like this.
And while I don’t know what the future holds, I know the only way for it to be better for the both of us is for me to let him go.
The most epic love stories end in tragedy.
Jack and Rose.
Antony and Cleopatra.
Romeo and Juliet.
Charlie and Banks.
I think about the letter a lot.
I can sometimes spiral on what his response might have been.
The emptiness can swallow me in an instant if I let it.
Somehow, I managed to ground myself with my work here.
I think about all the kids.
I think about their smiles .
Sometimes, I even find my own as I step outside my quarters and find that night has washed over the camp. The darkness is my favorite time and I wait for it each and every night.
I wait till the moment I can stare up at those stars.
Fireworks shoot through the sky tonight as I stand under the glitters.
My eyes shut, and I can almost feel him beside me.
Staring up at them.
The stars that changed everything.
That gave me the greatest love that I could have never in my wildest of dreams imagined.
Tonight that’s enough solace.
And I don’t think of how it ended.
I think of everything in the middle.
The broken.
The pain.
The love.
The laughter.
The indescribable euphoria.
I think of the good parts.
And the stars.