Last Place You Look

Epilogue

To my Harry,

It's only been a year and much has happened since you've been away. I don't even know where to start. Niall and Kira got engaged. He asked me to help him. I said yes, obviously, and I got to be there when they got engaged. He's been such a big help since you left. He's helped with Skylar more than I could have ever asked of him. She loves him a lot.

Mom met a nice man. He doesn't come close to Dad, but I might be a little biased though. I think you'd like him though. He makes her smile and she blushes whenever he kisses her in front of me. Mal is still Mal, but he's started making art like Mom. He did a beautiful watercolor of you. It's in our bedroom. I finally read the letter my dad left me. You know the one he said I could only read after I've finished my first book.  Well, I've finished it now. It took a while to remember all the details, but I had a lot of help from our friends. I'll admit that I read it a little prematurely since I read it before I wrote this, but I had to know what he said. He said all the right things, all the things I needed to hear. It's like he predicted the future without plainly saying where we would end up, but he put a lot of things into perspective for me. I hope you two are together somewhere. I don't know if I'll every publish it though. It's so personal. It's our life together.

Kimmy, Dustin, and Mason visit a lot. We do a lot of play dates. I suspect Mason has a little crush on Sky, but he gets embarrassed if we say anything about it. They chase each other around the yard and all through the house. It's really cute. I wish you could see all the pictures and videos I have of them.

Your mom and Gemma call a lot. Cece is getting so big. She's wicked smart and has your nose. Gem sends me pictures of artwork Cece does  at school. She drew a picture of all of us and asks me to tell you she misses you every time we hang up the phone. We're going there for Christmas this year and we're staying for New Years. We never saw them enough when you were here and I want to change that. Sky needs them. I need them. I'm a little scared to sleep in your room. Anne said she hasn't touched it, but she'll change it around if I need her to. I told her to leave it the same. She told me I can go through it too and take whatever I want. She's been amazing through everything. 

We visit you a lot too. I go every Sunday morning because you loved Sundays the most. Sometimes I bring Skylar and I tell her stories from when you were here. She's starting to understand more now that's a little older. She likes to see pictures of you. I know she's going to forget all the memories she made with you, but there's always room for more. But I like to go by myself sometimes. It's nice to just lay in the grass on a blanket and talk to you like you're still here.

Sky has started asking about you more as she gets older too. She wants to hear about you and know you. It breaks my heart but makes me so happy at the same time. You two had this beautiful bond the second she was born. I don't know how you did it, but I'll love you forever for it. I miss seeing how you looked at her.

I promise she'll know who you are though. She'll know how much you loved her and I try my best to love her the way you did. We have pictures all over the house and we look at our wedding album at least once a week. I play all your favorite songs for her and I play all the best music. She'll grow up hearing your voice too. I found the CD in your desk and I promise to play it for her whenever she's missing you. You'll be here, even though you aren't.

I think about the day we met a lot. I think about what would have happened if I had driven to work that day. Or if I had believed the weather report's call for rain. I think about if you hadn't had the Billie album I was looking for. I think about if you hadn't ran out after me. If one little thing had changed, I would have had so many less days to spend with you. A single thing could have changed everything.

Every day I got with you was a blessing though. You said in your vows that loving me was the antidote to all the sadness and grief you'd been carrying, and I can only be glad that I had the opportunity to do that for you. You deserved everything good and beautiful in the world. I told you that you made the side effects worth living with, not knowing that you would become one.

I have spent seven beautiful years loving you. If I have learned anything over the course of loving you, it's that we were meant to find each other. We were meant to meet in your record shop. Our record shop. Not a day goes by where I don't think of you. I don't remember life before you and I don't want to think about life after you. But I have to, and I know that now.

When we met, I was still broken. He left me a ghost of who I was meant to be. But you never cared. You didn't care when I cried or felt uncomfortable in my body. You didn't care when I had more bad days than good ones. You held my hand and loved me through it.

I didn't know what it meant to be in love until I fell in love with you. I didn't know what it meant to be loved until you showed me just how much I could be loved. You gave me more than you could ever know, and I will spend every day for the rest of my life being the person you watched me become. Because without you, I wouldn't be the woman writing this letter. I'd still be Charlie, the girl who cried in your arms in my living room. I'm so much stronger now, and you deserve to be credited for some of it.

I miss you so much, Harry. Mom said being without you would get easier, but it hasn't. It still hurts to wake up and feeling your body missing from mine. I miss watching you sleep, especially when you're dreaming. I miss watching you wake up too. You used to scrunch your face up to avoid the sun in your eyes. I miss how you smell right when you get out of the shower and the way you never dried off your hair well enough and you would leave a trail of water from the bathroom to our closet. I think I miss your eyes the most though. They were the thing that comforted me the most. Looking at you, seeing the love we shared in them. That's what made each day a little easier to live. But every day that you're gone, I find myself appreciating all the different shades of green that used to be in them.

I don't know where you are right now, but I know your soul is waiting for mine somewhere. That's what soulmates do, right? They wait, even if it takes an eternity, even if it makes several lifetimes to get back to each other. We'll always find each other in the end. I didn't believe in that until you, but I think maybe I just got lucky.

I know you though, so I know that you'd probably tell me that everything will be alright. We'll be alright, right? I've been telling myself that you'd tell me that it's gonna hurt for a while but that everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay it's not the end. I don't see how living the rest of our lives without your laugh could be okay, but you were always the more optimistic one. But I can promise that I'll try. I'll try for you, for her.

You were a list of firsts for me. The first man to love me with his whole self. The first person to help me see myself for my actual worth. My first and favorite wedding date. The person who picked me up when I was broke and loved me until I could glue myself back together.

That's what all of this is. A list of our firsts, the most important moments in our life. I had to write it all down. I'm going to show it to Sky one day. She won't see some of the more... explicit parts, obviously, but she'll see the kind of man that you were. She'll see how we fell in love. Love was something I doubted for a long time, but I don't ever want her to doubt it like I did. This is the kind of love that lasts until the moon and the stars die too. I'd do anything to have your point of view though. I did ask mom to write down what happened when you went to ask them if you could propose though since I wasn't privileged enough to be there. She agreed before I could even finish talking.

We miss you so much, baby. We talk about you every day, live for you every day. You'll always be with us. Not a day goes by where I don't think of you. I don't remember life before you and I hate living a life after you. Our story is one to be remembered though.

Wait for me wherever you are. Let's go into the next lifetime together, alright? I love you forever.

Always yours,

Your  Charlie