Opposite Force

Epilogue

"We have Mr. and Mrs. Warner over here," the hostess says, gesturing towards a huge table with more silverware than anyone could ever possibly need.

Peyton pulls out my chair as we say thank you. The second she turns around, he plunges his arm into my purse.

"What do you need?" I ask, holding back a laugh. No one but myself can locate anything in the bottomless pit that is my tote. I found my undergrad student ID in there the other day. It was stuck to a train ticket from our European honeymoon.

"Pen."

"Zipped-up pouch on the left." Writing utensils are the one thing I keep safely stored.

"I knew you'd have one," he exclaims victoriously, grabbing a black Sharpie. Before I can ask what he's doing, he plucks my name card from the table, crosses out 'Mrs.' and writes in 'Dr.'

This is why I married him. Almost eleven years after our first date, I'm still swooning over the guy.

"Micky!"

Only one person still calls me that. "Hi Annalise!"

She wraps her arms around my neck, knocking an earring out of my ear. Peyton immediately scoops it up, grumbling hello to my best friend. She smirks, cleans it with hand sanitizer and some poor ten-year reunion attendee's napkin, and sticks it back into my ear.

"Sarah and Robbie got here at the same time," she announces, wiggling her eyebrows like it's some kind of drama. It isn't. They amicably broke up at the end of senior year before going off colleges on either side of the country. They're still best friends. Plus, Robbie's married, and Sarah's engaged, so there aren't exactly any lingering feelings.

"Want to say hi?" I ask Annalise and Peyton.

"Yes!" Peyton agrees, helping me up from my seat. "Wait. Annalise, where's your date?"

That's a good question. Annalise isn't much of a relationship person, so we were shocked when she informed me that she was bringing someone to the reunion. She shrugs. "Lost him. Ready?"

The three of us wade through former classmates to find our friends. Sarah spots us first and rushes over, tugging her fiancé Xavier's hand. He was her boss at the clinic where she interned during graduate school. Annalise lived off the office romance drama.

Robbie and his wife Charlotte file over, and we fall into small talk, happy to see each other for the first time in a while. With us spread out across the country and, in Lizzie's case, world—Peyton and I in Virginia, Robbie and Charlotte in California, Sarah and Xavier in Massachusetts, Lizzie in London, and Annalise usually in Florida—the crew hasn't been in the same location since Robbie and Charlotte's wedding two years ago.

"Mikaela! How far along are you?" Charlotte asks, an excited smile on her face.

I part my lips, but before I can get a word out, Annalise gasps. "Charlotte! Mikaela's just fat."

Charlotte's jaw drops, her eyes bulging out of her skull. "I'm so—" she starts.

"Six months," I correct, caressing my baby bump lovingly.

"Such a jerk," Sarah mutters.

Peyton nudges me, and I nudge him back, prompting him to share the news we just got last month. "It's a boy," he practically yells, turning heads in our direction.

"Named John," I add. We decided to name our baby after Peyton's dad. His due date is the same as Peyton's father's birthday, so we're hoping he shows up on time, not that we'll be all that upset if he has other plans. We're just excited to meet our little buddy whenever he arrives.

We got married three years ago, and after being together so long, starting a family felt like the perfect next step, but I wanted to wrap up my doctorate first. Definitely the right decision. At my current radius, I wouldn't have fit into half the labs at school. Plus, I needed lots of coffee to get through all those late nights studying, and little John wouldn't have appreciated that too much.

Charlotte, looking incredibly relieved, presses her hand to her heart, while Annalise and Sarah squeal excitedly. Robbie and Xavier clap Peyton on the back. "Is he going to play football like his dad?" Xavier asks teasingly.

"No," Peyton, Robbie, and I answer simultaneously.

"Hey guys!" comes a loud voice from behind us.

"Liam!" Annalise and I exclaim as he pulls us into a hug.

Liam and I didn't speak until our senior year of college. He did a lot of reflecting before graduation and gave me a true apology, one without excuses or omitted truths. I forgave him after that. No sense in holding grudges.

His girlfriend and soon-to-be fiancée (although she doesn't know that part yet) Lindsay greets us with a huge smile and a baby bump of her own. "Guys," she groans. "Why are you making the pregnant ladies stand up?"

Very good point. My feet hurt.

"Would you like a lift to your seat, Doctor Mrs. Warner?" Peyton asks.

Everyone laughs, but he isn't kidding. He's been hitting the gym like crazy recently. For reasons I don't understand, my husband is determined to maintain the strength needed to lift me all the way through these nine months. Last week, he joined in on his football team's practice, coaching while he ran drills with the players. Of course, half the school's history students have huge crushes on their buff teacher, but he's happily taken. Also, it's very convenient when I don't feel like walking to the car in big parking lots.

"I think I can make it," I assure him.

"Offer stands," he informs me.

I know it does. He's crazy, but in the best way possible.

Up until the day Peyton and I stargazed for the first time, if someone told me that I'd actually be excited for my ten-year high school reunion, I'd have laughed in their face. I never would have believed that I'd even attend an RHS event after graduating, but here I am, saying hello to old friends and acquaintances, knocked up with the star quarterback's baby. To be fair, I'd have been pleasantly unsurprised if they said that I'd have a doctorate and job as a researcher for NASA, but the rest of it would have blown my mind.

Peyton would have been shocked to hear that he'd graduate magna cum laude with a B.A. in history and summa cum laude with a master's degree in education before landing a job as a history teacher at a prestigious private high school. He'd probably be just as shocked to learn that he suffered amnesia from a car accident his senior year of high school and never regained the memories, save for a few flickers that might be from dreams. I don't think he'd be overly surprised that he was able to move forward despite missing a four-month chunk of memories, though. Peyton's always been a live-in-the-moment type of guy.

What a crazy, crazy universe we live in. I plan on studying it until Peyton and I retire and live on a yacht (his idea), but I'll never question the trajectory it decided on for my life. Although we really could have done without the accident and amnesia, Peyton and I are just grateful he's around for our happy little future together. In the words of Peyton Warner, it's awesome.