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EPILOGUE
KYLER
FOUR YEARS LATER
You knowhow they say time flies when you’re having fun? Yeah, it’s totally true.
It felt like I blinked and was on the stage accepting my diploma from KU. I’d majored in film production, with a minor in broadcast communication. And I’d turned that short film that I’d submitted to the small film festival in Boston into a full-length documentary that was releasing worldwide in just a couple of months. And if that wasn’t amazing enough, I was also about to go on a nationwide tour in the fall, talking to high schools about the very real issues of sexual assault and dating violence. I was going to miss Ian like crazy, but he was going to be busy playing football for the Wichita Plainsmen anyway.
Ian had decided to major in social work with a minor in psychology. He’d said that he wanted to have a backup plan if he didn’t get drafted, and he hadn’t gone out for the draft in junior year because he wanted to finish his degree first. And if something happened and he couldn’t play anymore, he said the best thing he could think of to do was help people like me.
Braden? Well, he’d majored in business administration, which basically meant he was just at college for football. It had worked out for him, though, and he’d ended up getting drafted by the Orlando Dragons in our junior year. It had sucked saying goodbye to him, but we still kept in touch, and he seemed to be doing amazing in Florida.
But despite all the good in our lives, one of the hardest things I’d ever dealt with happened at the end of our senior year in college. When Cosette got lethargic, stopped eating and drinking, and stopped letting us hold her as much, Ian and I took her to the vet and found out that she had stomach cancer. It was too advanced for them to do anything to help her, so rather than allow her to suffer any more than she already had, we made the heart-wrenching decision to put her to sleep. Ian cried almost as much as I did, and despite my saying that I always wanted to have a bunny, I’d told him that I wanted to wait at least until after graduation to get another one. We both needed time to grieve for our sweet furry friend, who was more like family.
Even though Ian was going to be in Wichita a lot during training camp and football season, we’d decided to make the Kansas City area our home base, and with the huge signing bonus he’d gotten from the Plainsmen, we’d invested in a house together. Our family was here, and so were a lot of our friends, and we just couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
My mom was still living in the same house, but we’d moved to Overland Park, a town over, and I was perfectly content tonevergo to her neighborhood in Olathe. I hadn’t spoken to her since the day I’d gone back to the house with my dad and Jody to get the rest of my bedroom packed up. She’d never even bothered to call me when the news story about what happened with Max and Coach Jefferson broke, and that was the last straw for me. If she couldn’t get over herself and be there for me after I’d almost died, then she didn’t deserve to be a part of my life at all.
On a Friday morning in early June, I woke to an empty bed. I started to get up to find Ian when I noticed an envelope with a red rose sitting on top of it. Confused, I grabbed the envelope and opened it to find a fifty-dollar gift card to Designer Shoe Warehouse, along with a note written in Ian’s sloppy handwriting.
It killed me to leave you in bed this morning, baby. You looked like an angel, and I wanted nothing more than to stay in Heaven with you. But I’ve got a surprise for you, and I have to make sure it goes off without a hitch. I planned some stuff to keep you occupied while I’m doing that, though. A scavenger hunt of sorts. First, get dressed and then go to the place where you had me tell you do to this.
P.S. I miss you already.
P.P.S. I love you. Forever.
I was so confused. Where I had him tell me to do what? Knocking the cobwebs out of my head, I got up, brushed my teeth, and got dressed. Then I grabbed the note again, trying to figure out what he was saying. Yeah, still as much of a mystery. I needed coffee.
Wait. Coffee. Oh, my God. The gift card was from a shoe store.
Compra los zapatos.
I was still chuckling and shaking my head as I grabbed my purse and keys and headed to my car.
* * *
When I walked into Starbucks half an hour later, I squealed as I saw Melissa sitting there. I hadn’t seen her since Ian and I had gone to visit her and her boyfriend, Liam, in Omaha over spring break.
“Liss!” I exclaimed, making a beeline for her table.
“Ky!” she giggled as she gave me a hug. “Oh, my God! You look amazing.”
“So do you. Is Liam here too?” I asked.
“Here,here? No. In KC with me? Yes. Anyway, before it melts, this is for you.” She handed me a venti café vanilla Frappuccino.
“Coffee. Nectar of the gods,” I chuckled as I took a long sip.
Melissa grabbed a gift bag and an envelope off the seat next to her. “I’m also supposed to give you these. Ian said to open the present before the note.”
I obeyed, pulling a picture frame out of the gift bag. And I choked up as I found myself looking at a huge collage of pictures of me and Cosette, with the same picture that I’d shown him at that first tutoring session in the middle of it.
Then I pulled the letter out of the envelope. This one was typed, which told me that he’d done all of this way in advance.
Surprised that I managed to get Melissa here without you knowing? Yeah, me too. I was about to explode keeping it to myself, and she was so excited that I was afraid she’d slip up and tell you.
Remember the first time we met here for a Spanish lesson? I do, like it was yesterday. You were so nervous and scared and closed off, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. But I wanted to. I wanted to know everything I could about you. From the second you had me tell you to buy shoes, I was a lost cause. You can say what you want about free will, but at the end of the day, I know it was fate that brought us together. Because I can’t explain feeling so much so fast any other way. I think I knew even then that that day was the start of something special.
