Because I had you

Fifteen | Epilogue

*5 years later*
I walk out onto the balcony with a wine glass, smiling at the beautiful night sky. I sip the liquid, with my other hand in my pocket. "Daddy!" Skylar, my second daughter yells and I felt her wrap herself around my leg as I look down smiling. "What, honey?" She looks up at me, "sissy's chasing me!" She whined and I laughed. "Aubrey, what do you think you're doing to your sister?" I yelled into the house as she walks around the corner smiling. "Nothing, daddy," She's holding laughter in and I looked at her with my eyebrows furrowed. "Are you sure?" She nodded. I shake my head, "you two need to behave okay? Go see if mommy needs help in the kitchen, okay?" "Okay!" They said in sync as they ran back into the house.

I stared back up at the sky. I felt arms wrap around me from behind as they lay their head against my back. "Hey," the soft voice booms through my ears. I smile as Lauren, my fiancé, walks from behind me. "Hey," I smile looking at her. "I got the kids up in bed, I don't know why they're so rambunctious today," she laughs shaking her head.

"I know," I laugh as I sip my wine. "Thank you for dinner, it was amazing." She smiles as she looks out over the balcony, "no problem. I cooked and cleaned so it's your turn tomorrow night!" She smiles. "That's perfectly fine because don't you remember that we said every Friday, we'll order pizza," I winked at her. Her mouth opened, "wait wait, I take it back!" I shake my head, smiling, "nope, too late now."

She scoffs as places her lips on mine, "I love you, I'm going to bed, I'll see you soon and let you," She gestures to the sky nodding as I smile leaning my forehead against hers. "Thank you, I love you too, I'll be up soon." She smiles as she rubs my back and goes back inside.

I finish the rest of my wine setting it on the railing as I take a deep breath looking up at the sky. "I'm still thinking of you with everything I do. I still love you, I'll never forget you. I needed that, when you came to me that one night. I needed that closure, I love you so much. You taught me love and pain and patience and kindness and I can't thank you enough. I named my first child after you, Lauren said it was perfectly fine too. I know you're up there telling me you're happy for me and I want to say thank you for saving me. Thank you for being in my life. I'm so glad I was in yours. I miss you everyday and I'll never forget you. I love you much, honey." I smile as a tear slipped down my face as I go inside, locking the door and turning the lights off.

—

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed and I hope you understand what I wanted people to take away from this.

I wanted to show people that life isn't always happy and that it's going to have these horrible moments and you're going to lose people that you love. I wanted to show the things people go through when they lose someone they love. I see too many stories where it's always a happy ending and I wanted to try something different. It was still a happy ending (to me) because shawn ended up happy and it's not the ending you guys probably wanted but to be honest, I really like what I did with this story and I hope you did too.

Let me know of you cried / teared up / got emotional here please. :)

Instagram: textingshaw.n2

Thank you for reading! :)