Best of Me

Epilogue

Wow, hi, hello, it's been a very long time and I'm so sorry it took me this long. School came out of nowhere and knocked me on my ass. but i have the epilogue for you lovely patient people!

I hope you enjoy it!

Epilogue:

"Quinn, come on, we're gonna be late!" I yell up the stairs.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" She yells back, the sound of her footsteps come pounding down the stairs. She appears in the front hall with a grin. "I was trying to find the sweater Grandma Priscilla knit me for last Christmas." Her dark hair falls in perfectly curled waves over her shoulders. The peach colored sweater makes her hair look darker, her tight jeans are tucked into a boots that she loves to steal from my closet.

"At least it's a good excuse for my mom," I laugh and plant a kiss on her cheek. "Maybe it'll ease the anger she'll have for us being late."

"Just let me do all the talking and she won't even be angry," Quinn says putting her jacket on. Quinn and my mom clicked immediately. After Quinn came back on New Year's Eve, there was a lot of resistance to her. I don't blame my family. Seeing me suffer through one loss and then another, it's not something they enjoyed. It's not something I enjoyed either. But they eventually saw I was happy and that Quinn was being sincere. We finished out that holiday with my family on a high note. There was laughter, smiles, and so many hugs. And that was two years ago.

We went back to the city, our jobs were waiting after all. But something felt off. We couldn't place it for a while. Quinn went back to the coffee shop, and I went back to the university. I smiled more, laughed more, went out more. And this time it was real. I made friends with my coworkers and Quinn's too. We saw Gus at the arcade bar a lot and he teased me that I was always hanging out with rowdy people. I brought my old group of friends back together from our university days. Introduced them to Quinn. We made our own little family in the city, and yet it still didn't feel right. It didn't feel like it was ours. Like our lives weren't our own; it wasn't just Quinn and me. It was Quinn and Tae-Jin and Mae and me.

Six months later, we were visiting my family again. We were thinking about moving in together, a new place, a place that wasn't haunted by our past. I was tired of working at the university I went to. Quinn was tired of being in the coffee shop letting her degree go to waste. My dad jokingly told us there were a few houses in town that were up for rent. Quinn and I immediately went to look at them. They were small, and cute, and colorful. And everything we wanted in a future together. Close to my family, close to the place we fell in love, surrounded by the things we adore.

My mom got Quinn a job at the middle school teaching English. I opened and started to run my own graphic design business from the house. Everything started to fall into place, to make sense. Our days were filled with work, our evenings with shared meals and cuddles on the couch. The weekends were for walks through town, reading books in the park, playing with Izzy when CoCo and Michael came to visit. Dinners with Granny, coffee with Asa and Natasha, drunk nights at The Library with the cousins.

Two years later and we're back to where we were at the very beginning. Trying to get to my family's house for the holidays. Except, this time, she was actually my girlfriend.

"Hey," Quinn says, her hand gently cupping my cheek, "you ready?"

"Yes," I say back, a smile growing on my face.

"You sure? I don't think your mom will let you walk into the house with soggy socks." Her smirks grows into a smile and tantalizing quirk of her eyebrow. I blush tugging my bottom lip between my teeth. My eyes fall on my shoeless feet.