Where I Found You

Epilogue - Will, once more.

Epilogue - Will, once more.

It took a while for everything to fall into place. For ages I didn't know where I stood. Sometimes, I hardly knew what page Alyssa was on. But one thing I definitely knew was that she was unbelievably brilliant at coping with it all.

I always remember the day I met her in the park, a couple of months after James had been born, sitting by herself with a bundle in her lap, her hair tied up and her eyes closed, cradling the small child close to her chest as she rocked him in her arms, the pram standing beside her. I remember the feelings in my chest, all rolling into one great big ball of blue roaring flames, and I forced myself to walk over to her.

She was nineteen and I was twenty and both of us were lost, waiting helplessly for something that we didn't think would appear.

Time had flown past dreadfully, in a way I had never imagined nor wanted. At the end of our conversation, when James had fallen asleep, and i asked Alyssa if he wanted to meet up again, I was so surprised when she said yes, after all I'd done to her.

I had forgotten that there was maybe still a part of her that loved me, in some twisted way. I had forgotten because of how much I had hated my actions. All I knew was that I loved her with my everything.

Everything spun off from there. After a few months, when the summer came and we had that pizza in that cafe we had been seeing each other at least twice a week, and I almost thought she had forgotten why we had gone apart when we were eighteen. After some time she moved in to my apartment - with James, who really was a great kid - and we would be each other's first port of call for everything.

In the darkest of times, Alyssa would cry. A lot. I would wake up in the middle of the night - not because of James, like you would with any normal child (he was so quiet!) - but because of her. I didn't want to ask because it wasn't fair, and I knew the reasons why anyway. I thought about Jack a lot too.

So the best I could do was just be there for her, and hold onto her. She slept best when she slept with me so from then on, it became the regular thing.

There were always the deep conversations in the dead of night, when we'd lie face to face and everything would spill out of her. I became glad that the guy she chose after me was Jack, because all her memories of him were just as she wanted them to be. With that guy, she had been happy.

When Alyssa had gone back to university and finished her degree, I asked her to marry me. She did, and looked so beautiful that day that it reminded me of the prom, the way I was so overwhelmed as she walked down the aisle.

And two years later, Aria was born, with wavy dark brown hair like mine and green eyes like Alyssa's. Fast forward two more years and Jacob arrived, with my brown eyes and Alyssa's dark blond curls.

It wasn't easy, in the beginning, but the more people that surrounded us, the better it felt. Up until now, it's been a roller coaster, but it's slowing down.

***

Ten Years Later

***

"Get the door, Will!" Alyssa calls

through to me, from the kitchen. I look down at the tangled mess I've made while trying to braid Aria's hair and then smooth it all out hurriedly while she continues to play with her two brothers on the floor. I stand up and go over to the door, where someone keeps ringing the doorbell.

Opening it, I see Stella, Dan, Michael and Jess, all wrapped up in coats, clutching presents.

"Merry Christmas!"