EPILOGUE
Even after two years, I hadn’t gotten entirely accustomed to waking up to Sawyer. I didn’t know that I would ever get used to it, even with all of my things moved over to his place and my own quite well inhabited by someone else. A new family had taken residence in my old house, and I wished them the best of luck knowing that I was going somewhere better and, really, perfect in every way for my future.
I woke up and crept out of bed quietly, not wanting to wake Sawyer. He’d had a particularly long day the day before, not getting home until late. He worked hard and left little time for fun, but that was the case with myself as well. Psychiatry was going very well, and I had started a sort of group therapy for veterans to come and talk about their struggles abroad. It was still in the formative process, but it attracted a lot of attention, and the local newspaper had even done a column about it.
I went to the kitchen and started making some eggs and toast. I made enough for the both of us in case Sawyer woke up soon.
Sure enough, I heard footsteps down the hallway within a few moments of the smell of bacon hitting the air.
“Good morning,” he said, pulling me to him from behind and kissing the back of my neck.
“Good morning,” I agreed. Outside some birds chirped, and I didn’t know that anyone could prove to me that a world existed outside that house.
“I told Pete I’d help him with some new decorations in his house,” Sawyer said. “But I don’t know shit about decorations. Do you think you’d be willing to come up with me for a bit?”
“Sure,” I said. I got us some plates and we ate at the table, talking about whether we wanted to get another birdfeeder. The birds nearby were absolutely terrorizing the ones we had set up, but it was too much fun to have them to not want another.
We took a few moments to get dressed. I pulled on a sweater; it was beginning to get a bit chilly. It was uncharacteristic of Texas to get chilly in the fall, but in only early October, it seemed that I would need a sweater. We got in Sawyer’s truck and turned to different radio stations on the way to Pete’s house. I’d been acquainting Sawyer with all the new music styles and technological advances that had taken place in his absence.
When we pulled up to Pete’s house, something looked strange. Or, beautiful, but strange because Pete’s property usually looked humble. The trees had big bows tied around them, and there was a long carpet down the side of the hill covered in flower petals. I looked up the rug and saw a tree stump, one of the older ones that had been there since the first time I’d seen the property.
Sawyer came around and opened my door, and he took my hand and walked with me up to the carpet.
“Is Pete inside?” I asked.
“I brought you here to talk to you,” he told me.
I blushed. I didn’t know what was going on, and while I would usually panic at ‘I want to talk to you,’ the situation seemed far from dire. I set my hand on his arm and nodded. “Alright, then,” I managed, trying not to let my imagination run too wild.
“Since I got back two years ago,” he said, “my life has been indescribably good. I could never have hoped for the family, the friends, and the relationships that I have now. I have a house; I have a good relationship with my father; I have a job—I didn’t expect to have any of those things when I came back. I didn’t think I deserved them.
“But those things all happened because of you. You came into my life and made it something better than I could have ever dreamed. I have you to thank for everything good that’s happened to me, Quinn. I love you very much.” We were approaching the stump, and my heart started to pound.
“I don’t want to see this go,” he said. “I love you, and I want to share the rest of my life with you, if you’ll let me.”
We stopped in front of the stump. Something glinted and caught my eye; I peered and saw a ring, a small silver ring with a diamond-studded center.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
I stared, dumfounded, at the ring. At the stump. The birds in the background filled the silence in the air. Slowly, I began to nod, pressured by the realization that I had to say something.
“Of course. Of course, I will marry you!” I picked the ring up off the stump and slipped it onto my finger.
He pulled me to him in a hug, squeezing me nearly too tight and yet somehow not tight enough. I wrapped my arms around him and bounced on my toes.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too.”
“Aww, that’s sweet,” said Pete—where had he come from? I turned around and saw him standing off to the side, along with Jesse and Janet and Sawyer’s parents. Babs waved at me too, hiding behind a tree.
“How did you get them all here? How did I not see them?” I was a laughing, crying mess. “Oh my God, Sawyer!”
“They’re good at hiding,” he said simply. He kissed the top of my head, and I turned around to poke him in the chest.
“I’ll get you back for this,” I promised him, the smile never fading from my face.
“You’ve got the rest of our lives,” he told me. He pulled me closer, and I let the world slip away.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Ivy Jordan