Page 151 of Stalkers Anonymous

“Yeah. I keep waiting for it to hit me. I’m not panicking. I’m not grieving. I’m not horrified. I’m a little sore, I’m a little hungry, but—I feel relieved, Cole.”

Cole takes the coffee out of my hand and sets it on the nightstand. He stretches out beside me on top of the covers, careful of my left side, and pulls me into him. “I feel relieved, too.”

Chewy migrates to my chest, his nose tucked into my collarbone. The sun is coming through the curtains at the kind of slow, golden angle that means morning has almost come and gone. Cole’s breathing is slow against my hair.

“Cole.”

“Yeah?” His voice is sleepy now.

“I think I’m going to be okay.”

“I know you are.” He pulls me in tighter and kisses the top of my head. For a long time, neither of us says anything else.

Eventually his phone buzzes against the nightstand. He picks it up, glances at it, and turns the screen to me without saying anything.

It’s a text from Tyler.

Tyler: Local news just picked it up. Hit-and-run, frontage road outside Greeley. Active warrant on the deceased for aggravated assault. We’re in the clear.

I read it twice, then hand the phone back.

Cole sets it face-down on the nightstand, slides his arm back around me, and kisses the top of my head.

“Welcome to the rest of your life, Hailey.”

I close my eyes and smile against his chest.

“Welcome to the rest of mine.”

Epilogue: Cole

Hailey and I sit on a massive rock that only looks like a horse’s tooth if you know too much about equine orthodontia. I think about how much has changed since the day we first met in the shadow of the very peak where we now sit.

“Want to head back?” I ask eventually. “I promised Chewy I’d teach him a new trick tonight.”

Hailey laughs, and the sound still warms me as much as it did the first time I heard it. “He’s never going to learn to heel. He’s too stubborn to be told what to do.”

“Have a little faith,” I say, standing and offering her my hand. “I’m excellent at being persistent, and I’m dedicated to teaching him.”

The joke lands exactly how I intended—dark enough to acknowledge my past, light enough to prove I’ve grown beyond it. Hailey smiles, her fingers intertwining with mine like they belong there.

“Your persistent, dedicated personality is one of the reasons I fell for you. It makes you who you are,” she tells me as we start our hike back down the mountain trail.

Toward home.

Our home, I realize. Somewhere along the way, her apartment became that. The place where we’re building a life together, where I’ve learned to exist in her space without cataloging every detail for later analysis. Where we spend hours tangled up in each other, watching movies or making up for lost time between her sheets.

“Race you to the bottom,” Hailey says impulsively, dropping my hand.

“Hailey, you’re joking. That’s almost two miles—”

But she’s already running, her laughter echoing off the trees as she disappears down the trail. I watch her go for a moment, grinning like a doofus, before my legs start moving to follow.

I could catch her in thirty seconds, but instead I stay behind her on the narrow trail, matching her pace, letting her win while watching the way her ponytail swings like a pendulum at her back. Her laugh carries back to me on the wind.

When we reach the bottom, I double over dramatically, hands on my knees, pretending to be winded.

“Show-off,” I pant.