Once Upon A Time ✓

epilogue | heal; wake

^ above is Someone Like You by Adele

this song made me cry at how sadly similar it could be to the ending.

yes, y'all heard. sadly. sorry babes, this ending breaks my heart just as much it breaks yours, i hate when mc love interests don't get a happy ending together but my evil Instagram followers chose this ending. hate them not me lol.

but of course there'll still be not one, but two alternative endings + a gabriel's pov as bonus chapters, so don't delete this book from your library just yet.

anyway, thank you all for sticking with me throughout the whole journey of this story <3

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MANY PEOPLE WOULD say that wounds took time and effort to heal, which I completely agreed to because healing was a journey, not a process.

I learnt that healing does not just occur, you have to be the one to initiate and go through it.

My wounds were both mental and physical. After waking up to the blinding lights of the hospital ward several days after my accident, I had came to know from a red-eyed Sophie that Gabriel had committed suicide the very same day of my car crash.

I had spent the rest of my days in the hospital sobbing for the loss of Gabriel, upset with his choice to end his life.

I felt empty for the first two months after my accident and his suicide. All I did was sob and cry. It felt just as painful as when my parents divorced and lost Tina, but there was a difference this time; my parents had been there for me throughout this healing journey, rushing into my room in the middle of the night when I awoke from another dream screaming in agony.

Being in dreamland had been painful. Gabriel was alive there, embracing his life with a huge grin and forgetting all about me. It was as if when real Gabriel died, dream Gabriel morphed into just an epitome of a dream. He became like everyone else, absolute perfection.

It sucked, really bad. Every day I was forced to see him standing at his locker joking with his friends or making out with Juliana. Some days, I just skipped dream school, unable to withstand the pain.

My parents got back together during the fourth month of my recovery. After having bonded over the time they spent together for me, they fell in love again, though Mum did give Dad a really hard time. Their relationship was still going well and strong today, and Dad had already expressed his wishes to propose to her again.

Me and Sophie's friendship developed over this period of recovery. She would hold me whenever I broke down and would visit me armed with hilarious gossip whenever I had to skip school. Never once had she left me to suffer alone, which I really loved and appreciated her for.

I also had regular therapy session with my therapist, Ms. Payne. She was a young and endearing woman who guided me through my dark time, constantly reminding me that Gabriel would've wanted me to heal. I clung onto that thought, which helped stop my addictions.

My situation with Amelia had also improved. We weren't as close as we were before, but the two of us were friendly with each other. She had also found a new group of friends and - surprise, surprise - they were the nerds, a group of girls that Amelia used to utterly hate.

"Kaylee...," I heard Sophie call out for me and snapped out of my trance.

"What's up?" I asked, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.