FIRE [FIRST DRAFT]

Epilogue: Aimee

I had to pee. It was a regrettable and damnable truth.

When I saw Stefan's ring I knew exactly what it was, and soon enough, I was a mess of tears and a giver of salty kisses. Stefan was always surprising me – I used to hate surprises. It was in that moment that I might have understood Abba most, because as I sat there on his lap and gazed into his starry eyes, I did not want to leave, I wanted an eternity.

Alas, Nature was impatient.

I was washing my hands in the bathroom upstairs when a thought crossed my mind, the thought of understanding Abba. The only 'person' who seemed to understand her now was Sylvain. I had his letter hidden in my pocket like it was something I wanted to protect when just a few hours ago I had been so ready to rip it up, and I knew there was a reason for that; there just had to be.

So, instead of returning downstairs, I followed my intuition into my bedroom and racked my brain to tell me where I'd put that note from months ago, the one that stranger had given me when I went jogging. There was something about the man's black hoodie, or was it something about the note itself, that seemed so familiar now. When I finally found the note in my diary, I figured it out: the handwriting was the same, the hoodie had to have been the same hoodie, and both belonged to Sylvain.

Stefan called from the stairs.

"In my room," I replied.

He asked me if I was alright and I told him that I was, and that I was sorry for taking long.

"That's okay."

"I found something," I said when he was standing next to me, showed him the notes. "They're both from Sylvain."

"So, he's been helping you from the start?" The discovery had Stefan in wide-eyed amazement, until he was just as purely confused as I was.

"Helping me or helping Abba," I sighed. "I don't really know. But now I know that the jogger was Sylvain, and I don't have to worry about him anymore."

"You don't have to worry about any of it anymore," he said quickly, assuring it as he took my hand.

The sensation of Stefan's hand on my skin was the only reminder I needed that we would be alright, that I had him and he had me. And yet, I could not keep myself from crying. I fell hopelessly into his arms, despite my new resolve, because it all came rushing at once. I had lost my mother again, in some way I had lost my father, too. I was not Aimee anymore, and yet I was. These were the consequences of the last few months of my life, but I was grateful, too. I knew that there was so much more to live for, convinced myself that these were happy tears.

The microchips had been a dream, a fictional promise of everlasting life, but we did not need them in order to live. We were delicate, and that was what made us alive. We had people we were willing to fight for, to die for. We had a reality.

For the next few weeks, Stefan and the others pieced GINM back together and made it their own, while I had a graduation and a normal future to consider. After everything, I had lost my perfect A, and Mom and Dad made it very clear that the world of secrets and secret agents was not going to consume me – or any of us – any more than it already had. I still planned to have Stefan be a part of that normal future, but sometimes I wondered if he could, and other times such thoughts were lost in the picnics and the dinners and the movie nights.

There were many uncertainties in my life as it was, but what was certain was Stefan. He was my constant, and so were Molly, Clifford, the Lincolns, the twins, Gavin, Celeste, Dominick, and even Coach Kirkwood, because I loved them, and because they reminded me effortlessly how beautiful reality could be.