18 months later

Erin

Late morning sun filters through the canopy of trees as I lead the way through deep forest to a clearing. I can’t help taking a second to admire the sparkle of my engagement ring in the bright light.

Derek proposed to me on Christmas Eve at Morrison Farms, when my aunt and uncle’s farmhouse was full of family members warming up with hot chocolate and spiked cider after sleigh rides and sledding.

It wasn’t just my family and his dad, but also Matias’s whole family again. We decided to make all of us spending Christmas together a tradition. My cousin Matt had recently gotten married, and his wife Jana was also with us.

It was perfect, as things often are with Derek around.

“That was a tall hill!” a young boy calls out from behind me as he makes it to the clearing.

I don’t even have to turn to recognize the voice of eight-year-old Jacob, one of our campers this summer. He’s full of energy and happiness. You’d never guess his father killed his mother while Jacob was watching cartoons in the other room.

“But you made it,” I tell him as he races around the clearing.

“I’m an airplane,” he says as he runs in big circles with his arms out.

The rest of the group—seventeen more kids from eight to sixteen years old, two counselors, and Derek—join us for a break. Derek had wood benches installed in this clearing, which is our first rest point on our seven-mile hiking trail.

“It’s gonna be a hot one,” he says to me as he hands me a stainless water bottle.

“Yeah, but no rain.” I take a long drink and hand it back to him.

“Lucky for you my sweat doesn’t stink.” He winks at me and put his arm around my shoulder, tipping his head to kiss me with both of our hat brims in the way,

“Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.”

Derek would normally be reporting for training camp very soon, but he officially retired from football after last season to run Camp Caroline with me.

He wanted to prove to the world that he could make it back as strong as before. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard at something as he did to get back in shape. He trained for hours every day, every muscle of his body perfectly defined. And his diet was rigid—he never cheated. He didn’t even give me the side eye when I ate Ben & Jerry’s on the couch at night when we watched TV together.

And he did come back to his team in a triumphant fashion. The news coverage was intense, but nearly all the attention was focused on him. He allowed ESPN to come film him training for a day at the farm and interview him there, which was a thrill for Uncle Cal. He was so proud to see the sign bearing his family name and the farm he’s worked since he was a boy featured on national television.

“Derek, did you see me hanging from that tree branch?” an eleven-year-old camper named Leon asks.

“Yeah, that was kick-ass.” Derek grins at him.

“Babe, language,” I chide for the fiftieth time this summer.

“Sorry, kick-butt.” Derek shakes his head at Leon like they have an inside thing now.

Leon eats up Derek’s attention. He follows him around with stars in his eyes. And honestly, I think Derek basks in the adoration of the campers here more than he did in the fame of being an NFL quarterback.

Derek helps the counselors make sure all the kids are drinking enough water. I had no idea he would love doing this with me as much as he does.

From the time we wake up in the morning, we’re talking about ways to improve and expand the camp. We take a break from all that when we have campers, just enjoying our time with them. Derek takes campers fishing and hiking, helps them learn survival skills and how to build fires, and tells them about the time he had to survive in a doomsday bunker.

He tends to embellish that one because the kids are so wowed by the story. It’s their favorite thing to ask us about over the nightly bonfire we have at camp.

“Erin fell in love with me the first time she looked at me,” he’ll tell them. “She couldn’t stay away. Chased me all over that bunker till I gave in and kissed her.”

The kids hoot and holler and double over with laughter at the image. Derek just winks at me every time.

I think what amazes me the most is how much these kids confide in us and the counselors when they’ve been here for a couple weeks. When they realize this is a safe place with other kids who have also been through horrible things, it becomes okay to speak their truths.

The nice thing about all our camp counselors is that they’re all licensed counselors with experience helping survivors of abuse. We can afford to pay them full-time salaries even when camp isn’t in session because Derek has gotten Camp Caroline major funding help from teammates and celebrities he knows.

The sky is the limit. We have that carved on a sign outside the main camp lodge, and we truly believe it. The sky is the limit for our camp and for every camper who comes here. I’m open with them about what I went through and how I cope with it, and it’s the best therapy I’ve ever known. When a little girl slips her hand into mine and tells me it’s all okay now, I know I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.

I wasn’t able to fly to any of Derek’s games his last season. I wanted to, but he insisted that I not do it. I road tripped to several, my family taking time off from the farm to come with me.

Derek reminds me often that he loves his claustrophobic wife-to-be. He doesn’t want me to change. It means everything to me to have a partner who understands that the trauma of my childhood is still there, buried inside me. I used to think strength was being able to let it all go and face my fears of basements, confined spaces, and abandonment.

But now I know that strength is admitting those fears are there without shame. This is who I am. This is how I got here. I talk about it a lot at Camp Caroline, and I hope it helps the campers to know you don’t have to push all the pain down and ignore it to be a survivor. Quite the opposite.

“You okay?” Derek sits down next to me after making his water police rounds.

I reach for his hand and squeeze it. “I’m great.”

“I was gonna tell you tonight, but I heard back from our real estate attorney on the purchase of the adjacent parcel. We got it.”

My mouth falls open with shock. “We got it? How?”

Derek grins, bringing out the crinkles in the corners of his eyes that melt me every time.

“Don’t worry about the how, babe. We got it.”

“Did you overpay?”

He shrugs. “Not really. Consider it a wedding gift.”

I take his face in my hands and kiss him. “I couldn’t love you more.”

Some nearby campers giggle, and Derek rolls his eyes at them. “You guys see what I have to deal with? She can’t keep her hands off me.”

I nudge him playfully, and he wraps his arms around me. We’ve been wanting to buy the adjacent property for more than a year now, but the owner, knowing Derek has deep pockets, was asking an outrageous price.

The property is four times the size of what we have now, though, and it has a huge lake. Derek has said all along he wants to build a new lodge on that lake, many times the size of our current one.

I’m pretty sure the new lodge will rival the one we live in, which is the one Derek rebuilt on the site where the bunker is.

I haven’t been back down there. I probably won’t ever go back. Derek took Matias’s family there, because they were visiting us with Matias and asked to see it. He also showed it to his dad. Other than that, we keep it locked at all times. There are good memories, but also not so good ones.

Matias will always be dear to us. We talk to him at least weekly and spend holidays with him. We’ve never spoken to Kenna since being rescued and probably never will. I’m not saying we were happy when she didn’t win Survivor, but…we were.

And Bryce…that one’s still pretty hard for both of us. I had a lot of guilt over giving him the benefit of the doubt. Derek tells me he likes that I think the best of people, but in this case, I feel like I literally helped someone get away with murder.

We had no way of knowing, Derek reminds me when we talk about it, which is a lot less often now. But his gut steered him a lot better than mine did.

Derek has a private investigator trying to find Bryce. He’s had no luck yet, but Derek says he has to try. What we’ll do if he does find him, I don’t know.

We’ve moved on, for the most part. We’re getting married at Morrison Farms this fall, and then we plan to do a little traveling and dig into our plans for Camp Caroline.

“You ready?” Derek asks me, standing up and stretching his arms into the air.

“Ready.” I bend down to grab my pack, but it’s not there.

I look up and see that Derek has shouldered both his pack and mine. He does that all the time, despite my protests. I shake my head and smile at him.

He takes my hand and says, “Lead the way, babe.”