EPILOGUE

( — a concluding part added to a literary work, as a novel. )

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          MY DARLING AGENT, SUN OF MY LIFE, MY SUN AND STARS,

          Please don't kill me. I don't know how to tell you this without being awfully blunt, but I had to make some last-minute changes to the book. The most relevant ones are in the epilogue. Please don't kill me. You're still my favorite person.

          Lincoln

Lincoln,

First of all: go to hell.

Second of all: WHY DO YOU HATE ME?

Third of all (if there's even such a thing): luckily for you, we like you. I'll go check it out and then get back to you if they decide to print or not. But screw you.

Devon

          Dev,

          I'd marry you.

          Lincoln

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          VANESSA TOSSED A ROCK TOWARDS THE LAKE. It bounced once, twice, thrice before finally sinking into the seemingly shallow waters, and she sighed, crossing her arms behind her head. Dylan took a step forward, hands feeling the rough surface of the trunk of a tree, and she briefly turned around to glance at him.

          She smiled. Dylan only caught a glimpse of it, being busy swinging himself up to climb the tree, as he had done thousands of times, ever since he was a little boy. Sighing softly to herself once more, Vanessa kicked off her shoes and rolled up her jeans, leaving her ankles and half of her calves uncovered, and stepped inside the lake.

          "Vanessa," Dylan called, fingers curled around a thick branch to prevent him from sliding off the tree (it would be a pretty nasty fall, he thought, and he sincerely was not in the mood to humiliate himself in front of her for the millionth time), but she didn't move an inch so as to show she had even heard him. "Ness." He pushed his glasses up his nose bridge when they began to slide down. "Nessie, please—"

          "You never called me Ness before," she said, taking off her cardigan and throwing it back to the shore, and her hair lit up in flames when the wind blew the ginger strands to the side. He gulped. "Is it because I'm standing inside a lake?"

          He sighed. "I'm not nicknaming you after the Loch Ness monster."

          "My classmates did, back in middle school. Long Neck Nessie." Vanessa tucked strands of hair behind her ears, looking back at him for a fleeting moment, and, despite the considerable distance between the two of them, Dylan knew he could count the freckles speckling her cheeks and nose. "It stopped bothering me after a while, anyway. I soon learned to embrace my identity. Nessie's Girl."

          "Where can I find a woman like that?"

          Vanessa laughed, a bubbly sound that felt exactly like a hug. "That was smooth, Tree Boy. Is that how you pick up women?" He shook his head, his golden curls bouncing up and down as he did so. "Shame. I think that's one of the ways you went wrong. How many are there, anyway?"

          "Five hundred, twenty-five thousand . . ."

          ". . . six hundred reasons," she completed, stepping deeper into the waters, and Dylan looked over his shoulder, trying to find someone—anyone, as he still preferred to stay away from large bodies of water and doubted he'd be of much help if Vanessa didn't resurface after diving. "Frankly, why did we ever let each other go?"

          "Do you want a list?"

          "Because it's totally the type of thing you'd do." Dylan couldn't quite confirm the veracity of it from where he sat, but he could have sworn Vanessa had turned around once more to roll her eyes at him. "Frankly, Dyl, I still think we should have talked things through instead of sweeping everything under the rug like we used to do all the time. Maybe we could have saved what we had instead of . . . having things be like this. It feels like we can't have a conversation anymore."

         "Vanessa."

          "Unless there wasn't anything that could possibly be saved, right? If there wasn't, then not even polite dialogue could do much to help." She fully turned around, stepping out of the lake, and, though Dylan knew he should be relieved to see her return to dry land, a hand squeezed his heart, shattering his ribs in the process. "It was pointless."

          Huffing, Dylan stared up at the stormy skies above their heads, with the sunrays refusing to tiptoe through the heavy-looking clouds. If they stayed here for too long, the towels Vanessa had brought with her from the pool wouldn't dry them up fast enough to prevent them from falling ill.

          "I've always thought we were too different," she admitted, after a tiresome moment of silence between the two of them, "but part of me thought it was the type of different that made us complement each other. I love the ocean and you like those trees of yours. I love the sky and the birds and you're happier when your feet are growing roots."

          "I'm a Taurus."

          She pursed her lips together, forcing herself to keep a straight face as she wiped her legs and feet with a towel. "Now you're blaming it on astrology? For example, I can blame it on your stupid obsession to try to save everyone and everything, even those you can't control. You're the only person you can control, Dylan. I never needed you to save me."

          "But you needed me to save us," he pointed out, jumping off the tree and hitting the soil with a dry thud. Vanessa never lifted her head. "It should have been a mutual effort."

          "I know that, but I also know you don't know when to give up. If you want my advice . . . go out there and save yourself. Let me do my own saving."

          Vanessa still let him give her a ride home once it was settled she wouldn't leave any splatters of mud in his car (though part of him wouldn't have minded, as she only did that when she wasn't angry at him), and remained awfully quiet throughout the entire ride, staring out of the window. The pine trees passed by in blurs without being distinguishable from one another and night quickly fell.

          The streets shone orange when he dropped her off and he knew exactly what was going to happen as soon as she stepped out of the car. He knew he'd never see her or hear her voice again, much like he knew she'd turn unobtainable—as if he had any right to own her like a possession. As if he had ever been entitled to her.

          She was never his and he was never hers. Dylan was willing to give her the freedom she needed and wanted, to let her rediscover herself, and, when she gave his hand a gentle squeeze before bolting out of the vehicle, he breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps, at the end of the road, there was light. Perhaps, at the end of the road, he'd find himself again, as that was exactly where they had gone wrong.

          They had lost each other and, somehow, that doomed everything else.

          Dylan had always thought he had everything figured out, from the very first moment he landed eyes on her, that no moment could ever surprise him again, but there was a small, yet massive detail about this one that made things a lot different from everything he had ever seen.

          The princess saves herself. Over and over again.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

Lincoln,

They want it. They say you're a genius.

Frankly, I don't know how you do it. Kudos to Michaela for knowing how to deal with you.

Devon

          Devon,

          This is Michaela, writing you through Lincoln's email address (with permission! My father is a lawyer. He taught me I should only commit illegalities I know I'll be able to get away with). I haven't read the changes because I'm too pregnant to go through more emotional roller coasters. I don't know how he does it either, but I've always thought it was a fantastic idea to keep believing in him; I mean, just look at what he does. He takes the smallest things and finds beauty in them, even when others don't.

          He's wonderful, this man. I really do think so.

          Best wishes,

          Michaela J. Tate

THE END