Rush and Restraint

Epilogue

It's an old memory but it's one that I suspect have stayed with all four of us all these years.

It was one of our earlier summers in Whitewood House. We were around fourteen at that time and we were all sitting out on the beach late that evening, circled around the small bonfire we'd helped Jack build, roasting giant marshmallows and looking out onto the shimmering surface of the dark horizon.

"What kind of man would you grow up to be?" Jack had asked us.

He hadn't bothered including Vivienne because she was curled up on a beach towel, mouth half-parted as she slept soundlessly. She'd only been eight then and a day running around in the sun had wiped her out. Her cheeks had been nearly as red as her hair and when I'd tried to pluck the metal skewer from her hand where her half-eaten marshmallow had slipped off and plunked into the sand, her nose twitched adorably as if in protest.

The guys and I had given different answers—some goofy, some as close as it could be to stone-cold reality. But we hadn't really understood what Jack had meant with that question. Just as we didn't understand that for all the power and influence we'd someday yield, life was a fickle fellow who cared fuck-all about what we wanted.

It wasn't until years later that I was able to give Jack a better answer as the man that boy had grown up to be.

"I'm the man who's going to love and cherish your daughter for the rest of his life," I told him that day he came into my hospital room after I woke up from my surgery. One look at his suddenly world-weary face and I knew the secret was out. "I'm never going to be her prince and it's nothing like the fairy tale she deserves but I can't spend my life—or hers—chasing after what we can never be."

Jack just smiled wistfully. "We're just humans, Oliver. Humans who fall and rise with every hand we're dealt and the choice that comes along with it. All we can do is find our footing again and make our way back."

It was a gruelling climb back from the edge and I made many mistakes along the way. There were things I regretted, things I wished I could've done differently but I wasn't going to fill my future with my toxic past. Life was too short for that and what time I had left, I was going to dedicate to the people who made it possible for me to continue living it.

"Daddy!"

I grinned and crouched down just as Noelle dove into my open arms, white petals spilling from her dainty white wicker basket. I lifted her up and tried to fix the frothy skirt of her dusty rose gown around her legs. A warm, sweet ache bloomed in my chest especially when she wrapped her short little arms around my neck.

"Noelle, you've got to stay down and wait for your Mommy," Stellan, who stood beside me, gently murmured to my restless five-year-old who kept wiggling in my arms until she was comfortable. She paid little regard to the delicate wreath of white little flowers on her hair that was starting to get crooked.