When We Realize (A Sheo Fanfic)

Chapter Nineteen

-Epilogue-

Our baby boy, Asher Tobias Woodley James was born on June 4th, 2015 at 6:40 in the morning. The experience of being in the hospital with Shailene in the early hours was intense and long, and I hated seeing how much pain she was in. It was all worth it once we got to finally see our child that has been hidden from us in her stomach the whole time. I had never held something so precious and so tiny. I already loved him so much before, even though I had never seen him with my own eyes.

Shailene decided on his name once he was born. She said that a couple weeks earlier she had seen the name Asher on a license plate, and she knew that if she had a son, that would have to be his name. If we have another child, I am going to have to keep her off the road, because apparently license plate names run in the family, and I don’t want our next child to be stuck with something freakishly odd. We knew we wanted Tobias or Tris as the middle name, since Divergent was the thing that brought us together, and we left out my actual last name, Taptiklis because we figured his name was already too long, and I don’t go by that name anymore.

Asher has dark hair like mine, but his skin tone and eye color mimic Shailene’s. I guess you can say his facial features are a mix of both, but he is such a beautiful baby that I know he has to have more of Shai’s genes. My tiny family is so perfect, and sometimes I think that we have both completely changed because so much has happened, but then I realize we didn’t. We are still us.

I still crack really inappropriate jokes at dinner tables, causing Shailene to laugh and then elbow me under the table at her parents’ house. She still wakes up every morning and sings “Good morning, good morning!” She still enjoys being outside, and using herbs in every possible scenario, sometimes to my dismay… She’s a good cook, but not all of it tastes good.

Asher might be on my side with that one, when he was one years old, Shailene tried giving him an iced tea made from something called “Echinacea” to strengthen his immune system, and he knocked it out of her hand and it spilt everywhere. She wasn’t very amused when I started laughing and gave him a little high-five.

So much may have happened to us that I would never imagine, but we are still the same people, living intertwined lives. I meant what I said when I said that her existence is like a sun, and that all it took was for me to realize that my own personal universe revolved around it. She makes me so happy, and she makes me laugh so much. We have everything that I never even dreamed of asking for.

I think back to what Shailene said to me once when I had asked her how she manages to always be happy, even when I couldn’t be more stressed. She said, This life is so fleeting, and things easily could have played out a different way for us. I am so thankful for all these little moments that are given to me that I don’t know how I could live any other way. Little problems seem like they are so huge and important, but really they are just little stars in the huge constellation that is my life. I’m so lucky to receive all the opportunities that this world has given to me, and I guess being happy is my way of thanking the universe.

And she couldn’t be more right. I am so thankful for the universe, or whatever the heck it is, I’m not quite sure, for bringing us together. Everything could be gone in an instant, but right now, I have Shailene, and our baby, and I’m happy. My life became so much easier when I realized that… When we realized.