Run Away Forever

Epilogue

It had been fifteen years to the day since I had met Riley for the first time and I still remember that day, the day my whole life changed. 

Jack was now eighteen and heading to college at the end of summer. He'd been excited to leave for the past year or so but he didn't want to leave his best friend behind. Thankfully for him, she had encouraged him to go and promised that she would join him at the same college a year later when she graduated high school. Those two were really good for each other but I could tell some-thing was going to happen between them, they were just that close. Riley supported me on that idea.

Isla was sweet at fifteen. She had lots of friends who clearly cared about her. The only problem was that I knew how many boys were interested in her, I didn't want her dating for another few years at least. She looked so much like Riley and every day she became more and more like her.

Riley now was really close to her family, closer to them than she ever was. Her mum and herself had a really strong bond and it was so easy to see that they loved each other. It took a while for Riley to start calling Vince Dad but she soon did and never called him anything but that since. 

Ben was a great guy too. We had gotten close quite quickly and soon enough I found that I was employing him to become my assistant manager once he had finished college. He was excellent to work well with. He, like myself, was a family man and we often spent time with our families. Ben had found a nice girl a few years after working for me and now they had three kids.

My son and I were sitting in the kitchen eating lunch. He was waiting for his best friend to arrive but I could tell that something was stressing him out, he had those lines on his forehead that al-ways indicated stress to me.

"Jack, what's wrong?" I asked him.

"Why haven't you told me?" he said looking straight into my eyes with his deep blue eyes that were strangely similar to mine. We looked almost identical these days which was a little weird.

"What do you mean?"

"I know you are not my real father," he muttered.

I sat there in shock not knowing what to say, I never wanted him to find that out. 

I wanted him to be mine.