Epilogue Ella

Epilogue

Ella

One year later

Love conquers all.

That's what Jonah said to me one evening while we were cooking side by side in the kitchen, eager to surprise Mom with a feast of roasted duck and homemade mashed potatoes. I was only fifteen at the time, but Jonah was nineteen, so I figured he knew a lot about love. He had Erin, after all. Love ignited in his eyes when he spoke of her, and love sparkled in her pretty smile when she looked at him. My brother was an expert on love; I was sure of it. He was a maestro.

"Ella, listen to me, and listen good," he said, squeezing my shoulder as he sprinkled rosemary onto the meat. "I don't know much, but I do know this: love conquers all. Love conquers everything . If you're ever feeling low—and I mean, rock-bottom low —remember that, okay? Remember that I love you. Always. And you'll get through it."

Love conquers all.

And yet, I've always wondered— at what cost?

I take a seat at the round table, the room lit with brassy overhead lights beaming down from a sterile drop ceiling.

He hasn't changed much since I last saw him.

His hands and shirt aren't splattered in red, but his eyes still look upon me with that same fierce protectiveness I always saw in them—even on that final fateful afternoon.

"Piglet." Jonah's gaze settles on me, his voice oozing affection. He's seated across from me, uncuffed but fettered in a thousand other ways. "You finally came to see me."

Shoes squeak against linoleum while correctional officers pace the open visitation room, and I stare at Jonah as he sits slouched in a little blue chair. He scratches his thick reddish beard and waits for me to speak, knees spread and bobbing up and down, his green eyes glittering like they've never looked upon grisly horrors and bloodshed designed by his own hand.

There's still anger in my heart.

But more than that…there's peace.

Acceptance.

Love.

Love for me —for my own well-being, my bright future, and for all the people who pulled me to my feet and held me steady through the battering of cold winds and the destruction of one too many hurricanes.

Do I love Jonah?

Do I love this man across from me, looking at me as if nothing has changed, as if we're still dreamy-eyed kids whipping up recipes and reading stories by the fireplace?

Yes.

I love him. I love pieces of a long-ago life that still cling to me when my mind wanders and my heart reminisces. I love the man he once was, the man he showed me when innocence reigned and heartache felt like something that only happened in books and movies.

I'm allowed to miss moments and cry tears of loss when the sun hides away and shadows take its place.

I'm allowed to love him.

But the key to healing is when you know what to hold on to…

And what to let go of.

Despite that love.

"I'm getting married tomorrow," I tell Jonah, watching his expression shift into surprise, his eyebrows lifting to his hairline.

"No shit?" he says, sitting up straighter. "Damn, Piglet. My little sister found love. I always wanted that for you, you know."

I tuck in my lips, glancing down at the scratched tabletop. "I'm marrying the brother of the man you murdered."

He goes silent.

Voices chatter around us, loved ones conversing with inmates, correctional officers directing orders.

I look back up.

Jonah presses his tongue against his cheek with a slow nod, the glimmer in his eyes dimming. "Well, that's some twisted irony. I suppose I shouldn't expect an invitation to Christmas dinner once I get out of here, huh?"

I swallow, my heart twisting with barbed knots. "You almost ruined us."

He leans forward on the table, his eyes narrow, forearms flexing as he folds his hands together. "I was protecting you, Piglet. I was saving you from that vile piece of shit who almost murdered you ," he shoots back, irises darkening like storm clouds. "I'd do it again. I would. In a fucking heartbeat."

My heart hammers like a nail in a coffin.

Jonah is in that coffin. I'm covering him in dirt, lowering him in the ground for good.

I have to.

I have to, even though it hurts. Even though I love him.

"That's why you'll never see me after today," I confess, my voice cracking with pain. "I won't be visiting you again."

Just like that, the storm in his eyes morphs into a sad, slow drizzle as his breath hitches and cracks. "Don't say that."

"I'm not Mom," I whisper back. "I love you, but my love doesn't conquer all. It doesn't override the horrible things you did, the way you dismantled the life I was creating, the one I had just started rebuilding from the ground up. You tore it all down and left me shattered."

"C'mon, Ella," he bites back, pain skittering across his face. "You say it like I'm a fucking monster, when all I was doing was keeping you safe. I swore I'd do anything for you, that I'd protect you until my dying day, and I don't regret keeping that promise. Not one bit." He leans in farther, holding my stare. "And I hope to God that man you marry would do the same."

My bottom lip wobbles. "Max isn't like you. He's good and pure and noble. He fights the good fight for me. He protects my honor, but he protects my heart, too." Eyes fixed to the shiny tile floor, I fist my hands together in my lap. "You told me that you'd do anything for me. You swore it."

"You know I would," he confirms. "I think I've proven that, haven't I?"

My teeth grind together as I glance back up at him, watching as his coppery brows furrow while he waits for my request. "I'm going to ask you to do one last thing for me. You have to promise you'll do it."

"I promise," he murmurs, hands curling around the edge of the table, squeezing tighter, waiting, and waiting.

I square my shoulders, heave in a deep breath, and say, "Don't ever come looking for me."

A beat passes.

A tense, silent beat, where my words float to his ears and his features slowly collapse with heartbreak. Jonah deflates, his fight draining, all trace of light flickering from his gaze.

"Please," I beg, tears brimming. "You swore you'd always protect me, and this is how you're going to protect me." My lips quiver, hands tremble. "You're going to protect me…from you."

He shakes his head back and forth, disbelief shadowing the green in his eyes. "Ella, that bastard almost killed you. He could've hurt you again, and I—"

"It's not about him," I say through my agony. "It's about you. It's about the lengths you'll take, the lines you'll cross, no matter the consequences. I can't live my life in fear, wondering what you'll do next or how you might flip my world upside down again. I love you, Jonah, I do…but I need to love you from afar."

Tears well in his eyes as his jaw tics with raw emotion. "No," he whispers. "No, Piglet."

"Yes," I say brokenly. "When you walk out those prison doors in six years, eight years, ten years…you're going to live your life without me. Pretend you don't have a little sister, if that's what it takes. Mom never brought me home from the hospital in a pink swaddle, we never played Pooh sticks on a wooden bridge, and you never shot a man in the chest in the name of brotherly love." I force the words out, breaking down further with each syllable. "I never had an orange backpack that I carried around with me every day, wishing you were there to carry it for me. We didn't have inside jokes, or favorite recipes, or adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood behind the ranch. It was all a dream. A storybook."

Tears slip from his jaded eyes.

Little droplets slide down his cheeks, one by one, as he stares at me in silence, his throat rolling, knuckles going white around the table.

"Promise me," I finish with a small cry. "Promise me you'll do that."

Jonah stares at me for another harrowing second before inhaling a breath and swiping a hand down his face, erasing the evidence of his pain, of the awful pain that he set in motion with the pull of a trigger. He stares, blinks, and his lips part but no words push through them.

All he does is nod.

One nod.

One final promise.

"Thank you," I rasp, nodding back at him, cupping a hand around my mouth to hold in my heartache. "Thank you, Jonah."

Before I inch the chair back to leave, his departing words finally trickle out, landing in my ears and puncturing my heart.

"How lucky I am," he chokes out, throat rolling with sorrow. "To have something that makes saying goodbye so damn hard."

I glance at him one more time. One last look at my big brother.

Then I pull my eyes from his, stand from the chair, and run from the room.

Goodbye, Pooh Bear.

***

Instead of lighting candles or filling vases with sand, we toss sticks over a bridge. The branches slip from our fingers before we race to the other side of the rail, and I hold up the hem of my orange dress—the same one I snagged off a thrift store rack and wore to the Fall Fling. Max is beside me, his hand in mine, and together we lean over the railing and watch both sticks glide down the stream and appear below us.

Neck and neck.

Side by side.

As always, mine takes the lead and inches ahead by a centimeter.

A smile blooms as I celebrate my victory and Max gifts me with a teasing glare. "One day the universe will take pity on you," I tease.

"Maybe this is just the universe's way of trying to even things out," he replies.

"How so?"

Before we turn back around to face our friends and family, Max bends to whisper something in my ear. "You win every round of Pooh sticks," he murmurs. "But I win you."

The late-June breeze rolls off the water and my hair takes flight, right along with my heart.

Chevy has his hands folded in front of him as he waits for us to reapproach, prepared to officially give us the title of husband and wife. Max always said Chevy was a jack of all trades, and he wasn't wrong. The guy does everything. He dabbles in dog training and runs a kennel out of his house, plays the harmonica like a seasoned blues musician in a smoke-laden jazz club, and on clear nights, he sets up a telescope in his backyard and invites us over for stargazing underneath a milky moon.

When Max asked him to marry us on this old Michigan bridge we've come to love just as much as our Tennessee bridge, Chevy wasted no time in getting ordained.

Max twines our fingers together and leads me back toward Chevy as we finish the simple vow ceremony, sealing every perfect promise with a kiss under the summer sun. I laugh when he dips me, almost dropping me, my hands clinging to his father's hand-me-down suit as my hair spills down my back and my bouquet of vibrant orange roses lifts toward the sky.

Everyone cheers.

"Woo!" Brynn lights up from behind us, her flower bouquet also heaving skyward, the pink petals matching her bubble-gum lipstick. "You did it!"

Matty and Pete have their arms around each other, Matty's head on Pete's shoulder as he dabs a handkerchief to his eyes.

"Hell, yes!" Natine shouts, fist-pumping the air, her giant gold earrings catching on a sunbeam. "That's my girl!"

Max hauls me back up and plants a sweet kiss on my forehead.

The moment I leave my husband's arms, I run into my mother's. Mom lets go of Ricardo's hand and wraps me in a warm, hard-earned hug, her face falling to the curve of my neck. Tears wet my eyes as her familiar gardenia scent washes over me and fills me with nostalgia-spun memories.

"I love you," I say against her permed hair. "So much."

"Love you most, sweetheart."

I no longer question if she loves me most—more than the countless challenges life slung our way, or more than the faded memories of our past.

More than Jonah.

The warmth in her voice, the tender touch of her embrace, and the years of sacrifices and silent battles she fought for our family all affirm her love for me. Jonah may have stood at the forefront of her efforts at one time, as her way of clinging to control in a seemingly powerless situation, but in this moment, wrapped up in her arms, I feel the clarity in my mother's words.

Ricardo hugs me next, telling me how proud he is, and Kai steals me away to spin me around and squeeze me hard, thanking me for seeing him all those years ago when no one else had.

Brynn had, though.

Brynn sees everyone, no matter how small, no matter how quiet, no matter how shadowed and obscured.

It's her Christopher Robin eyes.

And I see her, too—she's unmissable, skipping toward me, a vision of hot-pink happiness.

"Ella!" she chirps, leaping at me with one of the luminous grins that have brightened my heart for years. "I'm so happy for you. Gah! Do you know what this means?"

I pull back from her hug, my cheeks streaked with tears. My eyes pan to her glittering engagement ring, showcasing a pear-shaped diamond, ringed with pale-pink stones. "What does it mean?"

"We're basically sisters!" she squeals. "Just like I always knew we would be."

I breathe out a charmed laugh.

In a way, she's right.

Mom and Ricardo said "screw it" a few months ago and eloped to a private beach in Mexico to officialize their love. And by this time next year, Kai and Brynn will be married—making us, in a roundabout way, sisters.

Not that we need the title.

I recall standing on a similar bridge once, telling Max about a passage that's often taken out of context: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

As I look around at my chosen loved ones, I know the quote rings loud and true.

Max's father sits in his wheelchair near the edge of the bridge with a nurse beside him, his eyes glazed and whimsical as he stares into the joyful chaos, his peppery-thin hair fluttering in the breeze. I jog toward him, hiking up my dress as my sneakers slap across the bridge planks.

"Mr. Manning," I call out, watching as he blinks slowly before his focus falls to me. "I'm so glad you could be here today."

The nurse smiles pleasantly, stepping aside to allow us a moment.

"Hello, there," Chuck says, a wide smile stretching as something like recognition fills his eyes. "Look at you. You remind me of my late love, Vivian."

"Vivian?" I'm positive Max's mother's name was not Vivian. "Your wife?"

"Oh, no," he murmurs, that glaze settling back into his gaze for a beat. "My wife left me willingly. Vivian never did."

I move in closer, letting down my dress and squeezing the flower stems. "I've never heard you talk about her before."

"Haven't I?"

"I don't think so," I say.

He smiles fondly, lost in unseen reveries. "I only had her for one summer before the lake stole her away from me," he says. "She had red hair, the color of cherries in late summer. She promised me we'd always be together…and I can't help but wonder if she's still waiting for me."

Blinking slowly, I stare down at him, unsure of what to say. I don't know if Vivian was real, or if she's just a figment of his ailing mind…a hopeful promise of better days.

Either way, I don't think it matters.

I stretch a warm smile and crouch down in front of him. Inside the pocket of my orange dress is a familiar white stone. I slip my hand inside and pull it out, weighing it in my palm before handing it to Max's father. "I want you to have this," I tell him. "It means a lot to me. It's kept me grounded for years, whenever my thoughts were dark and my mind was restless. Maybe it will do the same for you." I reach for his sun-spotted hand and stretch out his fingers, pressing the little stone in his palm. "Maybe it will bring you closer to Vivian."

He glances at it with cloudy eyes, his thumb grazing along the smooth ridges. "Thank you," he whispers, clutching it tight. "This is very kind of you. I wish I had something to give you in return."

Max comes up behind me then, pressing his palm to my lower back.

I glance up at Max before my focus floats back to Chuck. "You have given me something," I say softly. "You've given me more than you know."

Pulling to a stand, I watch as the two men clasp hands, Max's father holding his son's palm with both of his and tugging him forward for a long hug. I don't hear the words said, but I feel the palpable love between them, the devotion. Max never gave up on his father. Not once.

And I will never give up on them.

We end the ceremony on two horses, me riding Dawn, and Max galloping atop our newest family member, Phoenix II, with a "Just Married" ribbon dangling from each tail as we wave goodbye to our friends and family who are cheering us on in the distance. And an hour later, we are back on Sunny Rose Farm, guiding our beloved horses to the grazing pen as we share an intimate dance beneath the shimmering sky.

Max turns on a familiar playlist, and "Surefire" by Wilderado fills the air while the same emotions I felt in Max's truck on a crisp fall afternoon sweep me up in a tearful, emotional swirl.

Living.

Pure, wholesome living .

I've come to realize that some people have a way of making you feel as if living is more than just being alive. Being alive is a privilege, sure, but it's basic biology. Existing is the automatic rhythm of breathing in and out. But when your lungs breathe rapture, and your heart pumps with passion, and you find yourself fully present in every precious moment?

That's where you find life's true rhythm.

And living, I've learned, is a priceless gift.

The song fades into another sun-kissed melody as I wrap my arms around my husband and bury my nose against his chest, closing my eyes and letting him thaw the remainder of my frozen pieces.

We stay like that for a handful of blissful beats before Max glances down at me with a smile. "I'll get the horses put away, then meet you inside so we can… consummate this eternal commitment." He kisses the tip of my nose and adds, "Wife."

I lift up on my tiptoes and kiss him right back. "I'll be waiting with a Dr Pepper."

Moments later, I'm stepping inside our bedroom for the first time as Ella Manning, the sun mural lighting up the far wall and making me beam just as bright. Heading toward my work desk, I pull out the leather-bound book Max gave to me on a Christmas long ago—the book he created that predicted our happily-ever-after within pages of sweet words and vibrant sketches.

I graze my fingers down the front, smiling at the title.

Eeyore's Happy Ending .

As I set it back down on top of the desk, I shift my gaze to the right and discover an old, tattered notebook resting out in the open, put there for me to find. Max must've uncovered it from one of the unpacked boxes still stored in our bedroom closet.

A frown furrows. I haven't opened this notebook in years. Not since the day at the clearing when I was just a moody seventeen-year-old.

With a knot in my throat, I flip through the old notebook, memories coloring my mind and warming me up, head to toe. Doodles, drawings, notes, and wishes. Everything feels like a lifetime ago as a reminiscent sigh leaves me on a shaky breath, reminding me of how far I've come.

But before I return the notebook to the desk, I stop when something catches my eye.

I go back, reread.

My eyes glaze over, my heart skipping like a smooth stone across a lake.

My unfinished letter to Jonah stares back at me, the one I'd started in the clearing that sunny afternoon when Max wandered through the trees and changed my whole life.

I still never finished that letter. I never intended to.

But…

Someone did.

My eyes slide down the page, skimming over the sparkly pink ink scribbled onto wrinkled paper from years past.

A sharp breath leaves me.

Tingles ripple down my spine, tears filling my eyes.

And love stabs me right in the heart as I read over Max's handwriting scrawled at the bottom:

Dear Jonah,

Today I fell in love with a boy who

finally caught the sun.

And he never let her go.

The End