Because it was never about perfection. It was about grace. About second chances. About redemption.
His redemption.
Our beginning.
THE END
Epilogue
Walker
Six Months Later
Iused to think that happiness lie inside of one’s own accomplishments. Each time I checked one off of my list, I waited for something inside of me to change.
Maybe now I’ll feel something… anything.
But to no avail, a darkness continued to live inside of me. Now, as I stand at the counter and wait for my second cup of coffee, I realize happiness is a string of moments in your life.
Like now, as I look over at Jessie sitting next to Eli’s highchair making funny faces at her. Eli smiles brightly like Jessie hung the moon, her four teeth showing just how big she is getting. Eli grabs another piece of her pancake from her tray and shovels it into her mouth.
“Do you like my pancakes?” Jessie asks in a goofy voice. “You’re lucky I still got up early to make those for you after all the crying last night.”
Eli chuckles like she knows exactly what she did to us last night, which just makes Jessie smile and tickle her under her chin.
I know now that this is what it means to be happy. To feel the love surrounding you in such a small, mundane moment, and yet knowing it’s one you’ll never forget.
These passed six months have had it’s challenges. I didn’t want to rush Jessie into anything. I was there to support her in whatever she needed. Through her many nights of tears and anger. Then to the conversations with her parents that followed. Many conversations.
There’s still a deep wound there, one that I’m not sure will ever truly heal. But she knows they love her, even if they have made mistakes along the way.
Losing that unconditional trust in her dad was hard. She asked me one night what I thought about the fact that he still wants her to call him dad. I told her she needs to do what she is comfortable with, but that I can tell how much he loves her. I can see that he looks at her like his own just as much as he does her brother.
It’s all still a work in progress, but everyone is taking steps to heal. Her parents are going to therapy together. Her mother has even reached out and apologized for all her years of putting herself first. It’s odd how sometimes what you think will destroy you actually opens doors you thought were locked forever.
As for us. It happened naturally. Nights spent hanging out together. Laughing. Talking. Hanging out with Eli. A stolen kiss in the kitchen one night when she got up for a glass of water.
It progressed from there. Sex in the shower one night after Eli went to bed. Sex on the couch. In the kitchen. On the table. The floor.
Tons and tons of sex. And it’s not just me initiating it. Jessie has quite the appetite when it comes to me, and I’m loving every second of it.
What started as comfort, a way to remind her she wasn’t alone when her world tilted off its axis, gradually turned into more. Every kiss, every night tangled up together, was her grounding. I could feel it—the way her breathing steadied under my hands, the way she held on like I was the only solid thing left.
And God, I loved her. I’d known that long before she could even imagine. But love means patience. So I didn’t push. I let her come to me.
At her pace. On her terms.
Slowly, the lines blurred. She stayed over more nights than she didn’t. Her laughter filled the rooms before the sun did. Her shoes lined up next to mine at the door.
One night, she climbed into bed wearing my shirt—hair damp, face soft—and looked at me like she was finally seeing a future instead of a disaster waiting to happen. She finally believed me when I told her she was my everything.
“Walker?” she whispered.
“Yeah, baby?”
Her voice shook, but her eyes remained on mine. “I want this. You. Us. Not just the nights. All of it.”
I swear my heart almost broke from relief. I asked her to move in with me… and the rest is history.
