I recently hit a milestone birthday (40) which means it's been twenty years since I arrived in Newtown, to stay.

Mallorie drove me to the bus station the day I left college and Capitol. That was the last time I saw her in many years. We wrote to each other in the beginning, but then life happened and we lost touch. Fortunately, we reconnected a little while ago thanks to social media, and that is in part the reason I decided to write this story. Today, Mallorie and I talk often. She's a lawyer, lives in Capitol, is married and is mother to a little girl.

You read 'Nowhere But You,' so you know that I struggled, but found my own way. I found an apartment, a job, Nathan joined a new band, I made new friends who are now family, Rick and I had a fallout because of what I did, then Nathan truly broke my heart (how he did it is told in detail in Nowhere But You, as you know). One of my new friends died. Me and Nathan made up. His band reformed and broke out—One Life Remaining, ever heard of them? Our lives spin around it. It is their job and it became mine too because I love them. I went back to school, not for Law but for Music Business to have something to fall on to, because my true school was the work with this band. I have no idea if this is my true calling but they—the family that I chose, are and I will follow them until the edge of the Earth. My mom divorced Rick. Then he and I talked and patched things up (that took a lot of tears), and I even contacted my birth father. My brother Richie is a lawyer and now owns the firm with Rick, his dad, and my brother Paulie is an Anthropologist and lives between Granville and Egypt. Nathan got himself a house in the country (not the Caribbean) with the love of his life, the girl I always wished for him. He does art on the side and still leads the art direction of the band. We traveled the world together. We made more friends. Played music. Lived. Our original plans changed but we rode the wave and are still riding it.

And me? Well, the most important thing—and that is why I left it out until now—is that my person found me in this life, held my hand and never let go. His name is River, Moon River Andrews. The love I feel for River Andrews has no reason and no rhyme, because why does there have to be a reason? I only know that I love him because he is him and he loves me because I am me—his words. We married and made five children: three little stars in the sky and two earthlings who have his big hazel eyes, which was all I wanted.

At the time Alex Fitzgerald mentioned a next life, maybe as something that just came out without any hidden intention, I didn't know what he meant. I had, of course, heard about other lives, I know there are books about it, people who have claimed to experience it. Regressions. I don't completely discard it. If there are other lives, other lifetimes other than this one, I believe we don't actually remember them, as in, our brain doesn't, but our heart and soul do. My friend Julian told me about soulmates and how it doesn't necessarily have to involve romance.

If other lives exist I am convinced we have met—me and Nathan, me and Alex, me and River. Nathan and I found each other in this one, and we were, are and will be soulmates. Perhaps this was a first for both me and Brian. Then I found Alex, and I'll probably keep finding him and we'll keep trying until it works—or perhaps it'll never work and we'll be each other's tormented love for all of eternity.

But River looked for me and found me, and I hope he finds me in all lives to come.

(Funny, though, how the name of our band is One Life Remaining. If this is the life remaining for me, for us, I think it's been a pretty good one so far.)

The End.