secretly yours | grayson dolan

epilogue

Maya

-nine months later-

My leg is bouncing up and down, and not in an "I'm so pissed I could light the room on fire" kind of way. In an "I'm so anxious I could throw up on the spot" kind of way.

The last time I was this nervous, it was six months ago and I was in a courthouse in Boston. I was waiting for the judge to give his final verdict on the case of the Allen family versus the Michaels family. It was the longest process of my entire life. The past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions; good, bad, and everything in-between.

The trial took a heavy toll on my mother and I. A lot of long, stress-filled nights with no sleep and anxiety eating us from the inside out. We didn't know what to expect and worried our attempts to get justice for my father would fail.

Listening to Professor Michaels and her son give their testimonies on the stand, as well as the other kids involved on the boat, was re living my father's death all over again. I couldn't get that scene out of my brain. When the one year anniversary of his death hit this past summer, I was devastated all over again. This trail opened so many old wounds.

I held my mother as she cried in my arms almost every single night. It was the second hardest thing I ever had to go through in my twenty years alive.

But the triumph we experienced on the last day in court was worth all of the pain and suffering. The jury finally came to an agreement. Nicholas Michales was sentenced to up to twelve years in prison for driving the boat drunk.

While to me it isn't long enough, I felt relived knowing that he will be locked away for at least a portion of his life. I hope I made my father proud, and want to him rest peacefully now.

Professor Michaels fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically, when the judge announced the official jail sentence. She was screaming, knowing her son's entire future was basically over.

On one side, I squeezed onto my mother's hand, and on the other I squeezed onto Grayson's as we stood in the courtroom. I didn't look at my old professor once. I knew she was crying, causing a scene, but I couldn't glance her way even for a second. She deserved to feel this pain. I've felt it for a year now.

Grayson claims it was a power move, but it all came down to not wanting to give her any more satisfaction. She didn't deserve my compassion.

My mother is also in the process of getting a new boating license passed in the state of Massachusetts. She's determined to fight to make sure kids under the age of twenty one can't get behind the wheel of a boat. We don't want what happened to my father to happen to anyone else.

She's working hard to make that change and I'm proud of her. It's slowly getting easier for her, without my dad around, but it's still hard.

Grayson was by my side the entire time the trial took place. Having him next to me only made my love for him grow ten times more. We've been together officially for almost a year now, and there's many more to come.

And right now I'm just as nervous as I sit in the stands of Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. It's the first game of the football season, and the New England Patriots are versing the Philadelphia Eagles. Grayson is sporting number 29 and it's his first official game in the NFL.

This stadium holds sixty five thousand people, and every person here are chanting and screaming in support of the Patriots. The crowd is loud, so loud I can barely hear myself think. I take in a breath and look around, feeling exhilarated.

I'm covered head to toe in Patriots gear. A beanie is covering my head, my hair is styled in a side braid. Along with a silver and red hoodie with the team's logo on it. It's early September, so the weather isn't freezing yet. The sun is beaming down, allowing a warm glow to cast over me. It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon.