The Thing About Three

epilogue

I GUESS THAT'S it. Some of what you have read is exaggerated, other parts are fabricated because of my faded memories, but it's all real.

It's not word for word exactly what happened. Details and pretty words were added to create a better picture, and some scenes were developed from a general idea of how a conversation went. It's all faded memories reimagined. But it all happened. The main parts, at least.

I'm not sure why I've written all this.

I suppose this is maybe for my future children to read one day—a word of advice for when they enter the scary realm of love and romance.

But, really, I think this whole thing is my love letter to a certain Dallas Whitlock.

It's been almost two years since I found out that he loves me—or, loved me—and I haven't done anything about it.

I kind of can't. He and Stephanie are still going strong. I wouldn't be surprised if they got engaged, but I try not to think about that.

But, honestly, I think about it a lot. Maybe I do it so that I can get used to the idea so that it doesn't kill me when it actually becomes a reality, because I know it's going to become reality one day. He's never dated a girl for so long.

And he's stopped the three little pats on my back.

Which meant that he had stopped loving me.

I'd found out that soul-crushing little fact last summer when he came into town for the Fourth of July. I'd been invited to his family's backyard barbecue and fireworks show.

After hearing the truth behind Dallas's hug with the three little pats, I always looked forward to hugging him. And he always did it without fail. Before I left that night, however, when I was eagerly waiting for him to return from the bathroom so I could receive my hug, he surprised me by giving me a normal hug.

I didn't sweat it too much, convincing myself that he had drank a few beers in celebration and probably forgot because he wasn't in the right headspace.

But then it happened again at Thanksgiving.

And then again at Christmas.

No alcohol involved.

I convinced myself that he didn't want to do it in front of Stephanie, but a nasty little memory of him hugging me in front of her a year before at Christmas liked to nag at me.

It's February now, and I'm still reeling from it. Because it hurts. A lot. It makes me hesitant to answer his calls and texts. I still do, though, just not as often as I once did.

My art helps to keep my mind off of my bleak love life. My little business is actually doing pretty well—well enough for me to have quit my job at the daycare and work full-time on my artwork. I expanded my business to include custom birthday cards and invitations and even finished a new line of thank-you cards that I'll put in my online shop sometime soon.

My friends and family have also been a huge help. Hallie is in my business with me, helping with the business part of it all while I handle the creative side. We work pretty great together, her and I. We even got an apartment together last year, one with a spare room for my art studio.

Sierra visits us frequently, usually stopping by almost every night after work to drink wine and spectate while Hallie and I work, sometimes chipping in when we need her. I often put her on packaging duty.

Jeremiah also comes around a lot, though I think that was more so because of Sierra than me. They had started something up a few months ago at the birthday party I had thrown for him, and they didn't seem like they ever wanted to stop.

Dad likes to stop by, too, helping with taking the outgoing packages to the post office for me. I see him more than that, though. We hang out often on the weekends and have even started the new tradition of family dinners on Wednesday nights with Jeremiah, which usually ends with us playing a board game and getting into heated conversations over the gameplay. Competitiveness runs in the Champagne family.

I'd also tried to distract myself with dating. I'd dated three guys in the past few years. They were good for going out on dates and having someone to pass the time with and get all dressed up for, but weren't anything I wanted to make serious. My standards were too high for any of them to stick, because my standards were Dallas.

I guess I could've written about them, but they weren't notable enough to devote my time to. No offense, boys.

But, no matter how many people I try to fit into my life to fill the void in my heart, I can't stop yearning for Dallas.

I think about him nearly every second of every day, wondering about what we could've been if I would've taken different steps in our journey.

He's supposed to be getting out of the Air Force soon—or so he said. We'd talked a few weeks ago, one of those long conversations that neither of us wanted to end.

That was our usual formula—don't talk for a couple of weeks, call, talk for a really long time, end call, repeat.

I follow the formula because I think that limiting contact with him will help me to move on faster. I'm still waiting for my theory to start working, even though I know that it probably won't.

I'm sorry, I'm getting all sad now. It's just that I've kind of lost all hope for me and Dallas. You know, I debated in my head whether it was too soon to write an epilogue to this, but it feels like this is the end of mine and Dallas's love story, so I decid