And She Was Caught (Completed)

Epilogue

Epilogue

*One Year Later*

"Nightmares again?" I looked behind me when I heard Jack's voice. I watched him make his way to where I sat on the porch, carrying two steaming mugs. Like the other days before this, after everything had ended, I took my time to memorize how beautiful he looked, how peaceful he made me feel.

His drawstring pajama hung deliciously in his narrow hip as he padded his way towards me, his bare chest was all for me to see. He arrived by my side, gave me one of the mug with hot cocoa then he sat on the reclining chair beside me.

"Haven't had those dreams for almost a year," I muttered after I took a careful sip from my mug, my eyes trained on the vast land of Jack's farm. It never failed to amaze me, it was that beautiful.

He hummed approvingly, "Then?"

Resting the mug on my crossed legs, I leaned my head on the chair. "I dreamt of June. Today's her death anniversary." I was brought to that day again by my vivid memory. The gunshots, June falling on the ground and me, talking to her as she took her last breath.

I closed my eyes. The pain was still fresh, but unlike before, it stopped making me feel like I could die with her. Jack had helped healing me, the wounds and the nightmares. June's loss, it both marked an end and a beginning. Life ended for her at that time but she gave me another chance to live my life - this time, living it with the people who love me.

I wish I could spend time with her, be a sister to her and experience life with her. I wish we could talk about our love lives, giggle over martinis together at lazy nights. I wish I could go to salon with her, rant to her about work, listen to her get excited about something that made her happy or better yet, I wish I could see her getting married and starting her own family.

Family. Something that was robbed from the both of us. She had no one, I had my dad. And when she finally have me, when she almost have a family, she was taken away. It was unfair.

Life is unfair. But you don't throw tantrums or blame life, you live it. You go through it, finding flowers in a desert. Like what they said, it was all about learning how to dance in the rain, how to smile through pain, how to find life in death.

You move on. You don't dwell, because if you do, you'll lose.

I felt a pair of warm hands cup my face and I opened my eyes to Jack's blue hued orbs, gazing at me with so much love I thought I would burst into the seams.

"How are you feeling?" Jack asked, his voice a deep rumble of tenderness, a balm to my soul. He was crouching in front of me.

Tears started stinging my eyes. It wasn't because I was in pain, no. "I feel blessed." My words came out as a whisper.

His eyes went soft as his thumb started stroking the high of my cheekbone, something he was fond of doing, one of the things that made me feel blessed. "I miss her but being sad over it would do nothing but bring me down. I have you, we have this," I made a gesture with my hand to indicate the ranch, "we have our families, it's all that we need."

Jack smiled, "You're right,"

I smiled back.

***

*One Year and Six Months Later*

"Oh my God," Mel breathed out, her hands cupping her mouth as her eyes shone from unshed tears.

"Don't," I warned with a very low voice, trying to keep a steady rhythm of deep breathing.

"Oh my God, Oh my God," she started chanting as the first fall of tears wetted her cheeks. Then a dam broke from my eyes too and soon we were hugging and crying.