"We'll get through this, we'll get past this; I'm a girl with a whole lot of baggage."

epilogus

A section or speech at the end of a book or play that serves as a comment on or a conclusion to what has happened.

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Chase's P.O.V

Four years later...

"Two black Americanos for Chase and Tyler," the barista called out, dropping our cups onto the counter as we watched him retreat straight into the back.

Tyler and I wordlessly walked towards the counter, picking up our cups and looking around for an empty seat for us to sit in. It was very hipster of us, but we managed to locate two empty bean bag chairs in the corner of the coffee shop; not the only empty seats, but the only ones that weren't in the direct centre of the shop, or by the windows where we could be easily spotted by anybody we knew. We didn't come back to this part of London often, but when we did, we bumped into someone we knew without fail.

"How wonderfully contemporary of us," Tyler commented, taking a seat on the bright yellow bean bag, trying to balance his coffee cup in his hands. With nothing else. Only Tyler was capable of using both hands to hold a cup and still run the risk of dropping it all over himself.

I took a seat and thought about how easy this would have been for Lise. She would just tuck her legs in underneath herself, or maybe crossed legged. She's so short the bean bag wouldn't have even been that hard to sit in or get out of. I sat awkwardly, making sure to place my coffee on the floor before I took a seat, so I wasn't as clumsy as Tyler who was now trying to remove a coffee stain from his tie. "You're in your mid-twenties, stop acting like you're out of touch with the youth," I scoffed.

"If you just said youthsmaybe you're the out-of-touch one in this coffee shop," Tyler retorted, taking a sip of his coffee and almost dropping it on himself when he realised it was too hot to drink.

I watched the spectacle that was my older brother and shook my head, "I can't believe the universe let you father a child," I muttered.

"I feel like I should be offended by that, but I'm going to take the highway and ignore you," he responded confidently, placing his coffee cup down.

"It's the high road, dumbass," I corrected him. "How's Olivia?"

Tyler shrugged, "redecorating the house, again. She likes to keep busy now that Izzy's in nursery full-time, and so we've had our room painted three times in the past month."

"Sounds exactly like Liv. And what about you, how are you?" I asked him, sincerely which was definitely a shift in tone in our brotherly relationship.

"I'm good, busy, but I'm good. It's a 9-5, I get to go home to my wife and my baby girl, what's there to complain about?" He asked me rhetorically, but this time his demeanour changed, as he sat up straight and headed directly for his coffee cup.

"It's not got alcohol in it, you can stop acting like it will numb anything," I commented, "if life's so great why do you seem apathetic?"

"It's not what I thought it would be, accounting. I knew people said it was going to be boring, but I had everything handed to me, you know? And now that I've really settled in, I'm realising I'm not enjoying it. I'm making enough money for my family to be happy, but I'm not happy," he explained to me, trying to be comfortable in the bean bag chair that he kept slowly sliding down.

"So, what do you want to do?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he confessed. "That's the scary part; for the first time in my life I don't have a plan, I don't know which direction my life is heading and that's terrifying."

"I know the feeling," I agreed.

Tyler rolled his eyes, "you do, do you, Mr PHD?"

I shook my head, immediately knowing where he was going with his sarcasm, "I feel like a PHD is just procrastination. I mean, I'm loving it, don't get me wrong, but the longer I stay in education the safer I feel."

"You've spent so much time around Annalise, you've become her," he smiled up at me.

"Who would've thought I'd be in education longer than Annalise damn Fall?" I asked, myself mostly, but that didn't stop Tyler from listening.

"Maybe you never leave education? Maybe you get your PHD and you become a lecturer, and you teach uni students. Would that be such a bad thing?"

"Not at all," I denied immediately. "I love TA-ing, and I'm sure I'd love lecturing. But I was in uni not even that long ago, I feel like I should be taking notes when I'm in those seminar rooms – every time I speak to those kids, I feel like I'm being graded on a presentation."

"Being surrounded by all those university girls must be a lot of fun," Tyler smirked, and I felt like we were being thrown straight back into the house we shared four years ago.

"Yeah, Lise loves it," I muttered sarcastically. "It's even worse that she looks so much younger than me, the uni girls think she's one of them and if I'm willing to go out with her, apparently I'm willing to go out with any 18-year-old girl."

"How's her charity stuff going?"

I smiled, "she loves it; it's her true calling, honestly. She loves teaching those kids English, she loves meeting new people and being introduced to new cultures. She's just taken a break from work," I said, and I could feel the atmosphere change. It was like all the surrounding sounds had numbed, and the conversation was headed down its obvious path.

"How is she?" Tyler asked, and the smile on his face was no longer there.

I pursed my lips, "she's Lise, you know? She hides how she feels when she's around me, and she keeps fighting, and she lives life as normal, but she cries at night and it's hard to ignore."

Tyler didn't say anything, but his sigh was a statement in itself.

"She lies to me about food, or she changes the subject so I never get to ask her, but I can see her body trembling, and the fact that she loses her balance when she stands up." I continued, "I've never felt this distant from her."

"Has she lost weight?" He asked me.

"I can't tell." I don't know why I felt so ashamed when I said that, maybe it was because I was so distant from the person I loved most in the world. "She's lost it in her face, but I don't know by how much. We don't have any scales in the house, and she wears loose clothes."

"What about you? How are you dealing with everything?" He asked me, and it was the first time I feel like I could talk about myself.

"Everything I feel is linked to her. I love her more than anything and I feel like she's slipping; I don't know what to do."

"You're allowed to feel emotions, Chase. That was your baby too, it's your entire future," Tyler reminded me, even though I didn't need a reminder. I thought about it every day.

"She didn't even want kids," I let out in frustration. "I don't even know how it happened."

"It's not uncommon, I would know." Tyler was calm in comparison to my outburst, and I don't know whether it helped or made the situation worse.

"Lise has been through so fucking much," I continued, not making eye contact with anything in particular. "She's never had a break, not even once. She gets pregnant when she didn't even want kids, and when she's finally okay with it, and happy with the prospect of the future, not only does she fucking lose her baby, she finds out she can't ever carry one to term."

"It's not just her baby, Chase," Tyler's voice was soothing, and it was clear that, despite his lack of coordination and the goofy older brother I always had, he knew exactly how to handle me.

I felt my eyes sting and I grit my teeth out of complete helplessness. "I can't help her, Ty. I don't know what else to do."

"She doesn't talk to you?" Tyler asked quietly.

"She doesn't even look at me, Ty," I whispered, my voice hoarse, feeling as if it was swelling up. "She flinches when I touch her. She barely even sleeps when she's next to me in bed." I paused. "I think she blames me."

Tyler raised an eyebrow, "blames you for what? Getting her pregnant?" It was supposed to be a joke, dark humour in the middle of an abyss, but it didn't make me laugh.

"Yes," I said unflinchingly.

Tyler took a second to gather his thoughts when he realised that I was being deadly serious, "I'm sorry, am I the only one who knows Annalise Fall? Has she not been your girlfriend for the past five years? Or did I imagine that?"

"Three rhetorical questions in one sentence Tyler," I muttered in a dry tone.

"She blames herself, dumbass. You know how she works, she'll blame herself before she blames anyone else in the world, let alone you. Her staying away from you is just her wallowing in guilt, and you need to pull her out of that." Tyler could be the dumbest person I knew and yet he was an expert in me and Lise, and I didn't know how else to be grateful to him.

"I just want her to stop hurting, Ty," I admitted.

"I know," he nodded, "and she will, but you need to help her."

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I unlocked the front door, hoping I didn't make too much sound whilst I entered the house. I always felt tense when I entered, feeling awkward and unwelcomed in my own home, but it was because I didn't know how to behave when I was around her. I didn't know if I was supposed to be careful with her, treat her like she was fragile, or if I was supposed to pretend like none of it ever happened. Both had equal chances of frustrating Lise, and I didn't want to do either.

I walked into the living room to see Annalise on the sofa; she had a thin blanket wrapped around her, her head resting against the arm of the sofa as she sat mostly upright. My footsteps woke her up, her eyes fluttering open as she looked up at me, her wide and innocent eyes as beautiful as always. Her hair had grown longer than usual, encompassing her face so she looked even younger than she normally did, her lack of makeup exacerbating this.

I always felt so strange when I went out with Annalise, she's the perfect mix of beautiful and innocent and intelligent and oblivious; she held all her traits with such precision and care. She undoubtedly caught the attention of everyone around her, and she seemed so unaffected by it. She was always in her own world, never really caring about what others thought of her, trying to reach her own level of perfection, which mostly included helping other people and trying to save the world at the same time.

In comparison, I always felt so stiff. I wasn't someone who radiated idealism, morality and happiness. I was strictly focused on her and on myself. That was all I needed in this world. If I only ever knew Annalise, that would be okay with me.

"Hey beautiful," I whispered, trying not to be too loud and cause her to jump. She was mostly jumpy these days, loud sounds pulling her out of her daydreams and causing her to rush back into reality. It wasn't a transition she liked, I'm assuming. "I brought you food," I said to her.

Annalise's diet was hard to understand when she was being herself, with her not having favourite foods or cravings at all, most of the time she forced herself to eat whatever seemed least unappealing just to keep her health at bay. It was even harder now that she lost whatever appetite she had. Not only that, she didn't care about herself, or maintaining her own health. It was harder for me too, to watch her torture herself like this. She didn't realise that she was punishing herself, she didn't feel anything. She was used to the dizzy spells and the constant exhaustion, she had basically survived her whole life feeling the same way, but she didn't realise what it was doing to me. Every time she skipped a meal, it was like that was all I could think about. I don't know how she could survive, but I definitely wasn't able to.

"When did you eat last?" I asked her, and I knew she hated these questions. I didn't even want to ask them, because I didn't want her to hate me. She barely even looked at me and I didn't want her to push me away even more, but I couldn't let her survive on nothing.

"I don't really remember," and she wasn't being stubborn. She was never angry when she answered the questions, she was mostly quiet.

"Will you eat something for me, please?" It was a low-blow, but it was the only thing that worked. Annalise loved me more than she hated food, and I had been using that against her too often in the past month, but it was the only thing that would consistently work.

Her eyes brimmed with tears, and I felt my chest ache in how much pain something as simple as eating would put her through, and it was worse that it was a pain I couldn't even understand, but she nodded nonetheless. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, and that every breath I took was for her, and that when she was like this it was like my oxygen had been cut off. But it wasn't what she needed.

"It's soup," I told her. It wasn't much, barely anything nutritionally, but she needed to work through all this with baby steps. She'd throw her meals up, and I couldn't let her go back there.

I didn't think watching her eat would calm me down so much, but for a few moments, I felt like we had returned to normal. We had the TV playing in the background, because she always needed a distraction when she ate, it was a habit of hers, but she wasn't paying attention to The Big Bang Theory. Her eyes were fixated on the ground as she systematically ate a spoonful. She'd wait ten seconds, which didn't seem much time, but it was when you were counting, before she placed the spoon back in her mouth.

Our home had never felt this awkward, or uncomfortable. When we got the house last year, it seemed as if it would be filled with entirely happy memories. It would be the place where we gave each other our good news, where we'd start a family – if she wanted one, it would be the first place we went together after I proposed, the place we'd spend all day just watching TV, or never leaving the bedroom. And now it feels as if everything was just a dream. Like we were so close to having everything and just never got the chance.

"Did you see Ana today? How is she?" I asked her, and I felt like I was always initiating the conversation with her, but I missed the sound of her voice, rarely hearing it anymore.

She sent me a small smile at the sound of her best friend's name, and I don't know if the pang in my chest was out of happiness at the first smile I had seen from my girlfriend in a while, or jealousy at the fact that it wasn't me who achieved it. "She's okay, she keeps seeing Jake around which makes it slightly awkward for her, but that's what they both get for staying in our old area." And in classic Lise fashion, she diverted talking about herself and was able to hide her emotions through talking about anything and everything else.

I played along. "They're adults and they broke up as kids, you'd think they're over it by now."

Annalise shook her head, her hair swishing as she did so. When her hair moved, I could see the strands of her hair she hadn't managed to straighten, the curls barely visible but there nonetheless.

"Why did they break up?" And I knew I was milking the conversation, but I didn't want her to ever stop talking. I would kill to hear her sing again.

"I don't really understand it, I just know that Ana doesn't think she was ready for the relationship, and he was angry at her because he thought she was being a coward and it just ended in a huge fight that never got resolved." It was the longest sentence she had said to me in the past couple of days, and I didn't even care about what she was saying. If I knew what type of effect Ana would have on Lise, I would've dragged her to the house weeks ago.

"They're both single?" I asked, barely paying attention to her words, more focusing on the smoothness of her voice.

"They are," and there it was. Another smile. "Maybe the universe wants them together, who knows?"

"I trust the universe" I agreed, "it brought us together, what wrong can it do?"

It was the wrong thing to say, clearly, because my Annalise was gone in an instant. "A lot of wrong," she muttered, and it was a sudden change in tone.

"Lise," I sighed, but I didn't really know what I was going to say.

"I'm so sorry Chase," she cried, any happy demeanour she had crumbling around her as she pulled her knees into her chest, wrapping her arms around herself as she sobbed, her entire body being consumed with shakes. I was besides her in an instant, not knowing how I could make her not hurt. How I could console her without touching her, because clearly, she didn't want to be touched.

I softly reached out for her hand, hoping she didn't flinch when I touched her. She didn't. I took her small hand in my own, relishing in the feel of her skin against mine, even if it was just her hand. "Why are you apologising? I love you."

"Because it's my fault," she confessed, not looking up at me once. I felt everything shatter within me, Tyler's words ringing in my ears as I stared at the broken girl in front of me. "Everything I've put you through, it's all been my fault."

I reached out to cup her face, sighing in relief as she leaned into my hand, "you have been through so much. Way more than even you can handle if you put all the blame on yourself."

"I did this to myself, and because of me you won't even be able to have a family," she said, her body trembling as she took in shaky breaths. "They told me that if I kept messing up my health, I wouldn't be able to have kids, and I got pregnant anyway,"

"Hey," I began softly. "It takes two to make a baby, so you can't put that on yourself."

"I missed my pills, Chase." She was determined to place the blame on herself, but I didn't want to let that happen.

"And I didn't put a condom on, Annalise. Birth control was not your sole job. We were both being reckless, and it is both of our burdens to share," I told her calmingly, trying to hide the tremble in my own voice.

"You can't have kids, Chase. How long is it going to take for you to realise that? Why don't you just get out while you can?" Annalise snapped at me, and as much as I tried to overlook it, all I could see was the insecure girl I was dating five years ago. And although that was the Annalise that I fell in love with, it wasn't the one I wanted in front of me right now.

"I'm never leaving you, Annalise." She opened her mouth to contradict me, but I needed to do the talking this time. "I don't care about having a family. I went into this relationship knowing you didn't even want kids in the first place. I fell in love with you, knowing it was only you I needed in my life. If I had kids with you, then I would've loved them with everything I have, but if I didn't, it wouldn't detract from how I feel about you."

"I killed our baby, Chase," and no matter how hard I tried to calm her down, nothing was going to work. "I didn't eat when I knew I should, and I was reckless, and I didn't take care of myself or our child. How could you want me?"

"The only thing I want more than you is for you to give yourself a break. This isn't something that you did to yourself, and even the doctors said this themselves. It's nothing you could have changed, Lise." I don't know when the tears started falling down my face, or when our bodies became tangled with one another.

I rested my forehead against hers, and for the first time in a while, she didn't pull away. "I love you so fucking much, Annalise," I mumbled.

She was the one who initiated the kiss, softly attaching her lips to mine, hesitantly leading. I didn't do anything that I didn't think she wanted, following her lead, slowly and carefully moving against her as every nerve in my body came alive. It took every muscle within me to not lean into her, and kiss her fiercely and protectively, because that's all I ever wanted to do. Her lips against mine was like a forest fire, the flames tangling a web between the two of us as we leaned into one another, her chest pushing into mine desperately.

We pulled apart for seconds at a time, the both of us clearly craving one another because we could barely catch our breaths before we re-attached, the blanket on her lap creasing in between us as our bodies collided. "Marry me," I whispered desperately, but breathlessly in between our many breaks, the split seconds barely giving me the time to ask the two words.

She pulled away immediately, leaving a gush of cool air as she fell back slightly, "what?" she asked.

"Marry me," I repeated, my chest heaving as I tried to inhale any oxygen I could find. "Be mine, forever. Because I don't want anything to come between us again, and I don't want anything to make you question how much I ache for you. I don't want you to think that anything is a deal breaker, because nothing is with you, Lise."

"Chase," she began breathlessly.

"Marry me, because nothing exists without you. Not the stars, the moon, the earth. Nothing is worth this world if you're not here standing next to me."

"Chase," she repeated, her hand on her chest.

"Marry me, Annalise Fall."

Written: 17/01/19
Published: 18/01/19