T's Hopeline | ✓

Epilogue

On the 12th of April of 2016, this book was created and, only two days later, it was posted on this very app. It started off as a goofy project with no planned future nor success in sight but turned into my first masterpiece and something I'm extremely proud of. Nearly a whole year later I reached the epilogue, where I'm somehow supposed to say goodbye to the very characters that made me fall in love with writing and l just don't know how to do that.

I've grown a lot in the past year, in more ways than I thought could be possible, it went way beyond improving my English and my writing, and I'm extremely happy about it. You've been a part of that too. Some of you have been there for me since day one and that's something I'm extremely thankful for!

These characters will live on outside of this book, both in my own head and yours so this isn't the end for them. They shall carry on their lives until old age and have whatever kind of happy ending you thinks suits them best after that happens in this last chapter.

* * * 

Tessa's Point of View

Saying goodbye was a strange bundle of emotions wrapped up in a bittersweet situation. It's a necessary part of life because it allowed us to move on and evolve but leaving something, anything, behind was never easy.

It was only natural and slowly that you got acquainted with the process of looking and living past certain points of your life. There were, like in any other scenario, two ways this could go: one) you and your life changed for the better after that initial struggle caused by our habit-filled routines and our tendency to have some inertia in them and then there was the not-so-sweet turn of events.

Luckily that second option wasn't the case and was irrelevant, happily so.

High school was pretty much a time to be forgotten outside of the (few) positive memories made and lessons learnt from it and it was time to embrace a new challenge for most people my age: life outside of school and into the workforce with an optional attendance to college in the middle with a set duration that only depended on your goals, and wallet.

It was intimidating to think how we've all grown up, in theory. As children and teens, we spent days fantasising about this stage of our lives but now that it was here, it's nothing more than a daunting thought. However, I could afford the luxury of not facing it for a little while longer seen as I'm getting my PhD in Psychology for the next two years.

When I looked back there were always a few key people that popped up in my mind: my family, Chelsea, Christopher, with whom I grew and still am relatively close to, and James. Those were the people who scared my experience the most.

My family was still there for me as it always had been, and hopefully would forever continue to be, no matter the circumstances.

Chelsea, on the other hand, was further away than the both of us would like. She had just got her master's degree in business with honors from Cornell University and would now start working on making her own mark on the world behind the scenes of an ONG's organisation in just a few months.

Christopher moved up in life by taking a huge leap of faith and partnering up with a few of his trusted former classmates and colleagues and started his own law firm. However, that wasn't the juiciest bit. He got engaged, he was engaged to a beautiful Southern girl with a charming smile and golden locks just like his. It felt odd to hear those news because, even though I would (probably) never actually have anything besides a friendship with him, it felt weird to see someone who was once so caught up on you moving on to 'someone better'. That coffee date we had all those years ago really threw me out of whack because of that bombshell; I really didn't see his affection being more than just friendly and polite gestures toward me... Boy, was I fooled!