Not a single fucking doubt in my mind about that.
Epilogue
Jessica
I finally had the family that I’d always wished I had.
I was loved and I found out that I had so much love in me to return. I think that was really the best thing.
To know that I could show love.
Maybe I had before but I never really knew what it was. I was sure that made no sense at all but I couldn’t really explain it any better than that.
I belonged somewhere.
I’d found my place and what an amazing place it was.
After much traveling around, Silas and I decided that we didn’t want to settle down in one particular place for now. That wasn’t to say that we avoided his mom and sister. No, definitely not. In fact, he decided to finally buy a house near them. I understood why he hadn’t before. He easily could have and I was sure he wanted to, but the lies kept that wall up for him. It was easier to visit than to stay. So yeah, we now had a place to be near them for as long as we wanted at one time.
But I couldn’t lie, we were very much happy to take a break from it all. As much as I loved being smothered by love from his family, I also loved having him all to myself. He very much thought the same thing. I knew this because he told me often. And let me just say, I never got tired of hearing it.
“Why do we do these weeklywhinenights again?” Irenna asked right next to my ear. She kept her voice low enough so no one else would hear.
Yes, she meant it that way.
It was wine night for the girls.
But it usually turned intowhinenight with most of them bitching about their husbands for half the time.
I chuckled lowly at her.
You see, Irenna and I never really had anything to add to this half of the night. We usually ended up sitting there and smiling that almost fake kind of smile that clearly said we didn’t understand.
“Because, it gets us out of the house and a chance to be social,” I said out of the side of my mouth in her direction. “And these women would be there for us in a heartbeat if we needed.”
“Fine. You’re right,” she said back.
Despite the complaining, I liked these nights. I had friends. I had a group of women that had normal lives and supported each other no matter what. I had come to realize that sometimes you just needed to bitch. It didn’t mean they were unhappy or hated their lives. It didn’t even mean that they wished they weren’t married to their husbands. It just meant that they were frustrated and needed a place to get it out. And so this was that place. It was a safe outlet, that was all. When I finally realized that, I didn’t hate it as much.
And besides, I got a break from it when Silas and I decided it was time to travel again.
“Has Silas proposed yet?” Samantha asked causing me to choke on the sip of wine I’d just taken.
“Um, no,” I said with a panicked shake of my head. “We aren’t there yet.”
I didn’t think we were and I was honestly happy with what we had. I wasn’t in any rush to put a ring on it because I didn’t feel the need to. Silas and I were solid. Life was good. And I wasn’t worried about getting to the next step because I knew it would come when the time was right.
Irenna snorted beside me which caused my head to whip in her direction.
She knew something I didn’t know. Yeah, it was one ofthosekind of snorts.
“What?” Irenna asked as she took a sip of her wine and looked away.
“Maybe we are there,” I said with a smile as I turned my attention back to Samantha.
“I sure hope so because shopping for that ring was stressful. Nothing was perfect enough for his woman. Let me just tell you…” Irenna said not even caring that she was ruining her brother’s surprise.
And I knew it was going to be a surprise because I had no clue about it. Silas hated keeping things from the people he loved and while he hadn’t confessed what he’d really been doing all those years, he vowed never to hide anything ever again from his family. I knew he’d thought about telling them the truth a few times but he talked it through with me and saw that it would only make things worse. We started a new life together and I think I finally got him to realize that some things were best left in the past.
