After I Met You

34

When we get to the gravesite I tell Xavier that I'll stay in the car. It's not that I don't want to go with him, but I feel like this is something he should do alone. He doesn't fight me on it, most likely because he wants this moment alone, too.

I watch him through the windshield as he scans the rows of graves to try and find Mia's, my heart seeming to lurch directly into my throat when he places his hand over his mouth, stopping in front of a tall, stone cross with an angel on the front.

He sinks to his knees, his back towards me, and he stays like that for almost ten minutes. I'm anxiously wanting to know what he's doing. Is he crying? Is he talking?

After another five minutes, he finally turns back to look at me through the window of the car and waves me over towards him.

"Are you sure?" I silently mouth.

He nods, so I step out into the freezing cold, my boots crunching from the snow beneath me as I make my way over towards him.

The wind whips around me, causing me to wrap my arms around myself to make my jacket tighter. There's tears on his cheeks, almost seeming to be frozen in place from the chill.

"You okay?" I ask and sink down next to him. I don't care if my jeans are getting wet. The only thing that matters now is Xavier.

"Yeah. I got out a lot of what I needed to say." He sighs. "I'm just... god, I'm just grateful today happened. I didn't know that I needed to see Samuel, but now that I did, I'm just..." he trails off, unable to find the words. "Happy." He smiles, wiping away another tear. "Finally happy. I finally was able to apologize to Mia and her family, and I think that allowed me the chance to finally forgive myself today."

There's a glimmer of pure calmness in his eyes, and it makes me reflect on everything that's happened between us the past two years. When we met each other, we were broken and damaged. I thought that meeting someone so similar to me would just be a recipe for disaster, but as I'm sitting here with him in the snow I realize that I truly had a negative perspective on our relationship from the very beginning. Like Logan said, there's always a silver lining to every bad situation, and I just didn't realize that what I thought was the bad situation was actually the silver lining.

We're stronger now on our own, but with each other we're unstoppable. Being together during the hardest times in our lives made us realize what parts of us were truly broken, and together we built up the strength and the courage to find help. We handled our negativity and turned it into nothing but a silver lining.

"I know what you mean in a way." I finally reply, blinking away tears of my own. "For so long I had blamed myself for what happened with my dad, but after going to therapy, and after finally getting the chance to confront my mother I just feel... relaxed. My body doesn't feel like it's being weighed down anymore, and I don't know if it's the medicine, or if it's just my brain having this new revelation, but I'm just so happy we're here in New York together again. I'm so happy I found you, Xav. You've changed my life for nothing but the better."

He grasps onto my hand and tugs me into his lap, placing a gentle kiss to my lips. It doesn't go much further than that though, more than likely because we're at his ex-girlfriend's grave.

The wind whips around us again, and when I shiver Xavier pulls me closer to his chest. "I'm so proud of us." He mutters, looking directly at me. "Starting tomorrow, once we finally hit the new year, it's going to be nothing but amazing. I can't wait to experience life with you, and finish out college, and just..." he shakes his head and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "I can't wait to marry you someday and make you mine forever."

"Hm..." I trail off jokingly, wrapping my arms around his neck. "Is that because you love me, or because I'm halfway to being a millionaire now?"

"Can it be a little bit of both?"

I swat his chest while he erupts into laughter and dodges the next playful hit I try to throw.

"I'm kidding!" He says. "Okay, let's get out of here. I'm freezing."

"You sure you're ready to go? You don't want to stay longer?"

"Yeah, I said what I needed to say." He admits. "It's been on my chest for a long time."

I watch him remove his leather jacket, the same one he always wears, and my eyes widen when he places it beside the gravestone. That jacket was the last thing she touched. That jacket means everything to him.

"Are you sure?" I ask.

He glances back at me and gives me a reassuring smile, a smile that makes all of my worries completely fade away.

"It's time for new beginnings." He tells me and grabs onto my hand once more. "I'm finally ready to put the past in the past."

We start to head backs towards the car, but before we get halfway Xavier spins me around and kisses me deeply again. A kiss that's filled with so much love and reassurance that I find myself growing weak at the knees.

"God, you are seriously the best kisser." I breathe out, my breath fogging up around us before it vanishes.

"Really?" He challenges playfully. "No one else is better than me?"

"No one." I affirm.

He comes around to open the door for me until he curses himself and looks down at his sneakers, which are standing in a muddy, snowy puddle. "Shit." He mutters. "Now my socks are wet."

I let out a loud laugh as Xavier looks at me questionably before I glance up towards the sky. I guess Logan really is watching over me after all. He wasn't kidding about the socks.

"It's nothing." I tell him, placing a gentle kiss to his lips once more. "Here's to new beginnings, baby."

Author's Note:

Okay!! Omg that's the end of the story.

I want to say thank you SOOO much for going on this journey with me!! Xavier and Elena will always hold such a special place in my heart.

I wanted to write something about mental health and how admitting you need help doesn't mean that you're weak. It means that you're actually way stronger than you seem.

I also wanted the character development to be strong, and I think Xavier and Elena exemplified that!

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it.

I'm not done writing stories, there will be more to come, but this chapter for Xavier and Elena is over 💓

See you soon :)

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