All Too Well | ✔

Epilogue

all too well

"Be thankful for the hard times. They are heaven sent to teach you lessons, make you stronger, and ultimately lead you to a better destiny."

-

I couldn't describe how I was feeling right now, but I felt something deep within me, something I longed to feel so many years ago already: relief. I was finally able to speak to someone about it. To someone I knew would wait for me, no matter how long it would take me to break my shells and be honest with him and that certain someone was no other than Austin.

After college, I realized that Austin captured a huge part of my once so broken heart and that he was one of the main reasons why it was able to repair itself after everything that happened. I realized that I was still so stuck in my past and that always caused me to think that I would never be happy again.

"Are you feeling better now?" he asked carefully, caressing my knuckles with his soft thumbs. The circles under his eyes were even visible under the moonlight and for a brief moment I felt bad because I woke him up at midnight and he couldn't get any rest.

I nodded a few times, exhaling a loud breath I didn't know I was holding for so long because he was the first person I managed to trust after all those years. "I'm feeling so much better. Thank you for listening to me, for helping me, for... being here."

Austin smiled wholeheartedly. "I told you I would."

"Thank you," I repeated as I took a long sip from the untouched glass of water in front of me. "I thought I would have a mental break down while reminiscing those days and nights, but I'm glad I didn't."

"You're strong, so strong. And I finally understand why you have been the way you used to be. You've been hurt, stabbed from people you thought you could trust, from people you thought were your friends, from people you thought loved you just as much as you loved them." He scratched his neck slowly, pulling his eyebrows together in what seemed to be anger and disappointment.

"They used me for their own benefits. One pretended to love me to get revenge on his girlfriend. One pretended to be my friend to be close to my ex-boyfriend. And one pretended to still care about me just to—"

"—save his own ass," Austin sighed after finishing the sentence for me.

"Yeah," I whispered, nodding my head again.

"I still don't understand why Miles had to stay at your house though. Do you know what whappened that night?" Austin asked curiously, turning his head sideways to look at me with his sleepy blue eyes.

"Illegal car race," I responded bluntly. "Miles planned all of it. He knew that his parents couldn't keep up with all his problems, so he made sure to cross the line in order to be kicked out from his home."

"Wow," he rubbed his cheek this time. "And your journal? How did he get it?"

I scoffed, shaking my head in disbelief. "That's an even funnier story. Apparently Mandy always pretended to love Miles just to hide her actual love for Andrew and when Andrew hooked up with his girlfriend Jo at that time, Miles thought that Andrew was in love with Mandy and not me but then he realized that he was chasing the wrong girl and Mandy sort of helped him to get my journal."