Sincerely, Dr. Cruz

Epilogue: Sincerely, Dr. Cruz

Epilogue: Sincerely, Dr. Cruz

 “Elliot, can you not stand on the counter please?” Brad pleaded.

All of our friends had gathered at Armando and Jaya’s house. We had spent a coincidental day off at their house, just catching up on what had been going on in everyone’s lives.

Elliot—now three years old—smiled a crooked smile at his father, his unruly blonde hair messed up and his blue eyes mischievous. 

In the months that followed Kat’s divorce with Todd, she had definitely recovered from what had happened to her. She had told herself that it wasn’t worth dwelling on someone who didn’t matter to her. She had given birth to Elliot, and her mother had moved in with her for a year to help Kat out with raising him.

As for her awkward encounters with Brad? Well, they became more frequent. It didn’t take long for everyone to figure out that Brad just really, really liked Kat. So obviously, Jaya, Armando, Neal and I executed a variety of plans to get them together. Despite all of the awkward moments that went down every time we failed—we eventually succeeded in getting them together.

Needless to say, it had been a while since we had seen Kat truly happy. It was funny to think about how Kat and Brad argued like little kids at times, and at other times were all cute and in a relationship together. They had only been married for a couple of months, but hey, all’s well that ends well right?

You know, except for the part where Elliot couldn’t seem to stop messing around with Brad.

“No.” He said, giggling and doing that cute thing little kids do when they’re excited—squatting with their hands clapped together.

Kat would never admit this, but Elliot was a spitting image of Todd. That never changes her affection for him though. She loves Elliot with all her heart and knows that Elliot will be a sweet guy in the future, give or take the times he’ll end up pranking Brad as a teenager. I just feel it coming.

“Hey Elliot, why don’t you go jump on the couch with Dad?” Kat asked.

“But…” Elliot began—but at this point Brad had scooped up Elliot in one arm and taken him to the couch, flopping on it with overdramatic sound effect.

“Again!” Elliot said while giggling.

While Brad entertained Elliot, the majority of us were in the kitchen. Jaya and Kat were cooking along with Neal, while I just sat around on the barstool.

“Oh my god that smells so good.” I said, crossing my arms over the counter and resting my chin on top.

“Reina, everything that’s food smells good to you.” Neal said with his tone full of amusement.

“Well!” I said defensively, my hand subconsciously making its way to my super huge stomach. “I can’t exactly control when I’m hungry at the moment.”

Neal just smiled at me, his eyes twinkling like they always did when he smiled.

“Neal, just be happy she’s not as bad as I was. I woke Armando up at four in the morning because I wanted tomato juice. I mean, really? Tomato juice!?” Jaya said, holding out her hand as if it were going to get her point across.

That was another thing—Jaya and Armando had been married for a year longer than Neal and I had been, and also had a one year old son—Devon.

“Okay, but at least you can find tomato juice at a supermarket. This one wanted mangos at like two in the morning. Where was I going to find mangoes in the middle of winter and at two in the morning?” Neal stated, his eyebrows raised.