𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞✅ (Completed and Editing)

Epilogue: Paradise

Five years!
It's now five years since I left my old life behind, and everyday became an accomplishment of how strong I am and how far I've come.

Ricardo and I are now together and in a few months time it would mark the 3rd year as a couple. I'm also 3 months pregnant with his child. I know our relationship was moving along a little fast I guess, but after I confessed to them why I moved away, they were really shocked to know.

They remained even closer by my side, helping me to completely get over the events if my old life.

Nightmares constantly woke me up. Ricardo offering to stay with me, helped a lot. I started going to a nearby church and that also helped.

There was a God out there after all. I haven't drawn close to him in the way real believers do. I'm getting there, a peace within me.

I guess that made him fall in love with me because of how strong I was. "Please don't burn the house whenever we get into any misunderstanding", he said, one day after we were together. "Don't worry I wont" I said and we both started laughing.

He treated me like he was afraid to lose me.
Within my first year, I had managed to change my identity and I've gained more weigh, but not too much.

From Jessica Angelique Brown-Robbinson, I now go by the name of Maria Angelique Sanchez. I made sure to keep my middle name, so I wouldnt forget myself  and where I came from. It would remind me of back home, my parents and everything I loved about where I grew up.

I'm also applying for citizenship since this has become my new and permanent home.

Thoughts of visiting my family back home came to mind once in a while and I promised myself when everything was alright I would visit them someday. I can't live a happy life knowing my parents have no idea what has become of me.

My features changed, which meant I didn't need contact lens any more, but I kept the red to my hair. Ricardo fell in love with it.

Everyone had their lives going for them.
Sandra got married a few months after we met and now she has two beautiful daughters, Leia who is 4 and Amalia who is 2.

Elise and Jose also got married and they too have a son. Jose completed his Masters in civil engineering and now works with the military. Their little Luis is such a cutie pie, and whenever they all came to visit I made sure to spoil the kids.

One year after I moved away, investigators gave up trying to find me and they still didn't know what really caused the fire.

Michael on the other hand got married to Natalie a year and a half later. In a press release when asked if he doesn't miss his wife, he said, he does but he can't dwell on the past and she would have wanted him to move on with his life.

She wanted to live way out here where it was peaceful given that she wasn't the type to be around crowded places. He cried, but who cared, not me. Everything about him was a lie.

This my paradise.
I owned my own food business which soon turned into a restaurant. I used the money I came with along with Ricardo's help, to acquire our own home that was paid off and got into business.

We ran the restaurant together, with him being the head chef.
I was the manager. We were happy.

Truly happy

My friends and I were all happy just the way it should be.

*****************************************

Thirteen years since I last saw my parents.
Six years of living in a marriage made in hell.
Seven years since I moved to Brazil and began living a new life.
Five years of being with Ricardo and two Years since we got married, giving life to our twin boy and girl.