A Touch of Sunshine (gxg)

Part 27

7 months later

A year after it was announced that I would be getting married to Chad Paxton- I was going to be getting married.

Just not to Chad Paxton.

Valerie Maddow was going to be my wife.

After getting out of the hospital, Valerie had to take it easy. She didn't attend classes in person for the last couple of weeks of school, so I brought her assignments to her room for her. She was, however, able to walk to receive her diploma for her college graduation.

We started planning for the future after.

The future I always dreamed of, but never thought that I would ever be able to have.

Valerie started her law training, and we got a brownstone in the village, close to her parents home. She still had the dream of owning a farm on acres of land one day, but she knew that she had to work before that could happen. The home was close enough as well for me to be able to commute to campus for my last year of college, which I was determined to complete. Valerie encouraged me, and didn't try to stop me from graduating.

After everything happened, Chad and Headley both had to pay a fine, and by the skin of their teeth, avoided time behind bars. Headley and her parents wound up moving to Galicia after all was said and done.

Part of me couldn't help but to feel bad for her. She obviously had issues that needed to be worked out, and I hoped that she got help.

No matter how happy I was, there were times where I still found myself missing my family. Where I found myself feeling hurt and angry by everything that happened, and how my parents could possibly disown me. It started to affect me more in the months after school ended for the summer, and there would be times that I found myself taking out some of my anger and hurt on Valerie.

She was patient with me, but there was one night where she got angry back at me- and we wound up yelling at each other in our living room.

"I am not your emotional punching bag." she said, "I understand how hurt you are, and you have every single right to be. Lucy, I think you should talk to someone, like I do. I know I still have bad days but you know how much therapy has helped me."

"Okay." I agreed, "I will talk to someone."

I wound up speaking to a lovely woman named Julia. She helped me work through my emotions, and come to terms with the fact that my life wasn't the same- but it was going to be so much better now. It was just extremely difficult saying goodbye to the life that I once knew.

I didn't lose all of my family, though. Ellie, of course, was still my best friend in the world. She told me that my father would ask her in secrecy how I was doing, and he seemed relieved when she would tell him that I was okay. She told me that my mother asked about me once.

I didn't expect her to ever come around.

I also would see Ken from time to time. He was courting a lovely woman named Sophia, and they were going to be getting married in May. He seemed to genuinely care for her as well, and not just see her as an accessory to him.

I missed Eric terribly. He still hadn't reached out to see me at all, and I wasn't sure if he ever would, which was understandable. I had this awful fear that he thought that I had replaced him with Luca as a brother- which couldn't be further from the truth. I didn't interact a lot with Valerie's brothers, and when I did see Luca, it was always still a bit awkward. Ken told me that Eric lived full time at University, and was doing very well.

My wedding to Valerie was going to be on December 28th. It was going to be held at the Maddow Estate, and as Valerie and I requested, it was going to be a smaller wedding, with just family and some friends there.