EPILOGUE
ASHLEY
18 MONTHS LATER
The hall was packed to the gills with fancy dresses, flower petals and cameras flashing everywhere. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Ella didn’t have to sit still for hours on end with nothing but chocolate chip pancakes in her system. The tiniest bit of sugar sent her bananas, but a certain person, whose name rhymed with Barley Purrmont, insisted on them for breakfast.
Whitney handed over her phone to keep Ella distracted while we waited. "I figure part of this was my fault. I'm the one who told Charlie he should have the pancakes for breakfast." She grinned cheekily and high-fived Joel.
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Traitor."
"I have to tell you, being here now? No regrets about skipping out on our graduation." Whitney said. "This is insanity. I’d take a beach getaway any day of the week. We were here for what, four hours? Ella deserves a whole stack of chocolate chip pancakes for surviving this."
"Pancakes!" Ella squealed. "Yes! More pancakes! I want to eat a million chocolate chip pancakes!"
"Pancake eating contest later, kid." Joel pointed at her. "You're on."
"You're going down, clown." She put up her fiercest face, causing us all to laugh.
Whitney shook her head. "Charlie is such a bad influence."
"Or an awesome one." I teased. "Speaking of, there he is!"
Finally, out of the sea of red and gold, my handsome graduate surfaced, looking mighty proud of himself. Ella went running after him, and he scooped her up and spun her around while they cheered and started their eighty-seventh rendition of "CHARLIE IS SO SMART! CHARLIE IS SO SMART!"
"Proud of me?" He asked cheekily, pride etched across his features. "Now that I'm an honest grown up and stuff?"
"So proud." I kissed his cheek. "You're a real boy, now."
"Boy? Baby, I'm a man." He scoffed and, to prove his point, kissed me deep and dipped me. Whitney and Joel cheered behind us. "A boy can't please you the way I can please you."
"How do you please mommy?" Ella poked her head up.
"I tell her she's beautiful." Charlie grinned wickedly. "All day."
"Very smart." Ella nodded sagely. "She's beautiful."
"Enough." I laughed. "We need pictures!"
We took dozens. Some serious, some ridiculous, some in-between. Ella's favorite was the one where she put bunny ears over Charlie and he scrunched up his nose and bucked out his teeth to look like one.
It was moments like that where the world seemed to slow to a halt. My sexy boyfriend smiling, my baby girl elated, and my heart so full I thought it'd burst. In the last year and a half, my panic attacks mostly disappeared and the biggest pain in my chest was just the feeling of a heart full for the first time ever. Charlie did everything he could for us, and watching his personal journey gave me the courage to start my own.
What began as a tumultuous start blossomed into something real and beautiful and strong. Charlie didn't get better overnight, and he still fought through it every day. Probably would for the rest of his life. My own journey trying to manage my anxiety was full of potholes and frustrations. But we shouldered these things together. In those moments where we were weak at the same time, we were learning to appreciate that there was someone to fall apart with. Our relationship felt, above all, very honest.
As we walked through the crowded parking lot to begin our long trip to the boys’ house, I spotted Chelsea several aisles over. She and Brad had fallen off the face of the planet shortly after Charlie started therapy again and we'd just assumed they both transferred out.
"I'll be right back." I gave Charlie a quick kiss and skirted around the dense traffic. "Chelsea!"
She looked every bit the part of a deer in headlights. Chelsea frantically dug through her purse and dove into her car before I got to her, but I caught the door just before it shut.
"What do you want?" She asked, defensive and nervous.
I paused. This whole thing was sort of a knee-jerk reaction because Charlie upset my careful life of planning things and occasionally infected me with a bug to just do things without thinking them through. Still. "I think I wanted to thank you."
That rendered her silent.
"I know we haven't really had much to do with each other for two years, but because of you, I found a happiness that felt otherwise impossible. I sincerely hope you've found your own happiness since then. I know many didn't, but I saw the way Brad treated you. You deserved a lot better than that."
Chelsea's mouth worked silently as she tried to find something to say.
"You don't have to say anything. I just wanted to say thank you and good luck." I waved and made my way back through the cars. Just before I reached his truck, I heard her call back.
"Thank you." She looked a little teary-eyed, like maybe she hadn't been told this yet, that she was worth more than how the terrible men she picked treated her.
Over the last two years, I'd resented her a lot. But in that moment, my heart went out to her and I genuinely hoped she would one day know the joy of being loved and cherished by someone instead of abused.
"What did you say to her?" Charlie asked, his lips twisted in a frown.
I shrugged. "Nothing important."
His expression shifted into one that I adored, one where he stared at me like I was some wild animal he'd never seen. "You never cease to amaze me, you know that?"
"Every day." I kissed him, deep and slow, while Ella gagged in the back seat with Whitney and Rudolph.
"Keep kissing me like that and we won't make the party." He murmured in my ear. "I'll have to drop everyone off and take you out to a field and fuck you in the bed of this truck, where you can scream my name before God and everyone."
"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep." I teased.
"You know I'm a man of my word."
And he had been. It took a while, honestly, to let the rumors and reputation become water on my back. Seeing how dark his soul could get made me wonder where the cutoff point was and how he could control it. Meeting my own therapist helped me see we all have it, no matter what face we show the world, and controlling it is very much a sign of our maturity and the kindness of our heart.
Back at the boys’ house, party setup was in full swing by some of the people from his PTSD group and his old coworkers from the bar. Peter said crowds made him murderous, so he led the charge in organizing the caterers and the kegs set up around the backyard.
"Is that a bounce house?" I pointed to the blue, yellow, and red monstrosity in the back corner of the yard. "A bunch of twenty-somethings are going to drink beer and bounce in that thing? Is that really a good idea? Because I am not cleaning up vomit."
"Charlie didn't tell you?" Peter poured beers for those of us who just showed up and passed them around. "He invited some of Ella's friends from school so she'd have friends to play with before Martha picked her up."
I looked up at the man of the day, who shrugged as he drank his beer. "I wouldn't want to hang around one of these things when I was five, either. Even if she does think she's 23."
"Puberty will be terrifying. Here's hoping she doesn't turn into my mother."
"I'll be there to feed you booze and back rubs through it." Charlie promised.
My middle warmed every time he made promises to always remain in my life. The future was uncertain, but that he was happy in the little nest we'd made together, when he'd previously lived a life untethered to anyone, was something so special it couldn’t be named, only felt.
The party exploded quickly. Charlie Vermont may have been the life of the party two years ago, but aside from his loyal friend Joel, who was jumping around the bounce house with a gaggle of small girls, he was a lone wolf. His private circle exploded over the last 18 months.
I stood in the middle of the backyard, watching everyone mingle and drink and eat the tacos Martha and Jose served up with jokes and smiles. A half dozen small girls shrieked in the back corner. My best friend danced happily with the love of her life under a string of bright cafe bulbs. My darling Charlie animatedly told a story about some B-list celebrity he allegedly got drunk with during leave in Dubai.
This was the life I'd always wanted. In my dreams, it may have looked a little different—beaches or big cities, cozy couches and a nanny, zipping around the world traveling—but the feeling was exactly perfect. We had a community, a family, a life that made every day worth living.
"Are you crying right now?" Abigail asked and shoved another red Solo cup in my hands. "Didn't he finish school with the GI bill? No student loans. No crying necessary."
I nodded, wiping away the trickle of tears that gave me away. "Mine come off deferment soon and even looking at them makes me want to cry."
"Try serving drunk college kids your whole life to pay them off while waiting for some big embassy across the sea to notice you." She sighed wistfully. "You know, I never thought I'd see Charlie like this. Ever."
"Like what?"
She shrugged. "Happy? He's actually interacting with people instead of reading them for an angle. He lets people over to his house. Though I sure as hell don't miss that temper unless some dickweed frat boy is starting shit on a Friday. He could scare them off with a look, so that was nice. Otherwise, you've humanized him."
"People keep telling me that. I think he had it in him the whole time, just after a while, he didn't know how to be anything other than what people made him."
"Well, thank you for changing that."
I smiled, but shook my head. "He did that. All I did was offer a safe space to let him try it."
Charlie jogged over to us. "Hey, Martha and Jose are about to pack up and take Ella home. Before she goes, there's something I want to show you two."
Abigail waved and joined another animated group around the keg and we called for Ella to join us. He took us inside the house, where the living room was covered in candles.
"Pretty." Ella gasped.
Immediately, my heart began to race. I knew what I wanted this to be, but was afraid to even voice it or think it, just in case.
Charlie scooped up Ella. "You are getting too big to do this, young lady."
"I'm never too big to do this, Charlie." She shook her little head. "You're the strongest man in the world, remember?"
"You are just like your mom, you know that? Always using my words against me." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "You two girls have been the most important thing in my life. You make me feel like the strongest man in the world day."
He set her down and hunched on his knees to see her eye-to-eye. "I have a very serious question for you, Miss Ella. I love your mom very, very much. So much I sometimes think my heart will explode. And ever since we've spent time together, I've fallen in a special love with you, too."
I pressed my hands to my mouth so I wouldn't sob and ruin the moment, but the tears were already flowing like a river.
"Your mom chose to love you forever, right?" She nodded at him and flashed a brilliantly beautiful smile at me. "I want to choose to love you forever, too. I want you to one day, if you want, call me dad. I want to tell the whole world you're my daughter. Forever. Can I do that?"
Her angelic little face cycled through a dozen emotions all at once, and settled on her squealing at the top of her lungs. "ARE YOU GOING TO MARRY MY MOM?"
Charlie grinned so wide I thought his face would split, and my heart beat so fast I had to sit down in a chair. This was happening. The one remaining thing that filled my dreams for months was actually happening.
"I hope I will. But I don't think I can do that unless you think it's a good idea for us to be a family."
"I'm going to have a daddy?" She suddenly whispered, and burst into tears. She clutched his neck and cried, saying, over and over again, "Daddy, daddy, daddy."
Charlie squeezed her tight. "Every single day, Ella. Forever."
I was a total mess. I could barely see through the tears in my eyes and my entire body shook when he took my hand. My sweet Charlie, my fierce, strong, bullheaded Charlie, was crying, too. He pulled a ring box from his pants and cracked it open. Inside was a beautiful sapphire solitaire ring.
"I hate diamonds." It was such a stupid, weird thing to say, but it tumbled from my tear-soaked lips and we both laughed.
"I know you do. Diamonds are overrated and used to enslave poor countries to the wiles of the wealthy." He kissed my hand. "I always listen to you because everything you say is so poignant and brilliant. I want to listen to you for the rest of my life. I want to listen to you angry, and sad, and happy and joyous and passionate and stressed and in love, every day, for the rest of my life. I want to know, every single morning, you will be there by my side. I want us to be a family forever, Ashley. I need you two in my life more than I need oxygen. I love you more than I ever thought possible. More than I could put into words, and God knows I've tried for the last two months. But I know I don't have to because I can feel it in the way you tell me you love me, too."
"I do love you." I murmured, fruitlessly wiping away tears. "I love you so much."
"Marry me." He was so fierce and sincere, I fell in love with him all over again right then. "Ashley Johnson, marry me. Please."
I had no more words because my throat refused to work. So I nodded, I nodded so hard my eyes went crooked for a moment. He slid the ring on my finger and kissed me so hard we fell back on the couch. Ella climbed on top of us and the three of us sat there crying and laughing, together as one.
Applause and cheering erupted behind us as everyone looked in through the windows. Ella danced. I cried. Charlie looked happier than I'd ever seen him. He pressed me to him and everything slowed, as it always did, so all I could see was him.
"Love me?"
I stared deep into the eyes of the man I loved so much, the man who completed our little family, the man who would be my husband, and smiled. "Always."