Going Home

Epilogue

Six months later

Kat's POV:

"Kat, hurry up! We're going to miss our flight!" Ian's voice calls from the living room of my apartment. He's out there waiting for me, while I'm running around my room to find my ticket.

"I know, I know and I'm sorry. I just can't find my ticket!" I yell as I keep searching every inch of my room. I am looking in my underwear drawer when Ian steps into my room, waving something that looks like a flight ticket in his hands. "Would you look at what I just found, laying on the coffee table with your keys, your passport and your handbag."

I rush over to him and kiss him on the cheek. "You're a life saver. Now come on let's pick up Isobel. I still can't believe John and Susan suggested she would spend Christmas break with us." I say as I grab my stuff and make my way out of the apartment before I close the door and lock it.

Like the gentleman he is, Ian takes my suitcase and carries it down to the awaiting cab as I take out my phone to call Susan. "Hey Susan, we're just getting on our way to pick Isobel up. Are you sure it's okay for us to take her all the way over to California?" I ask, just to calm my own nerves.

"Kat, honey, she knows she's adopted, she knows you are her biological mother and I'm not going to keep you away from each other. I've seen you with her and I know she will be in good hands. It's only for two weeks. Just try to see it as if you're babysitting her. Besides, John and I took this opportunity to get away ourselves. So I don't want you to worry about anything, just have fun." The way she speaks makes her sound like a true mother and for another second I am glad Isobel is now with her and her husband John.

-

"Kat? Are we almost there?" The little girl with the beautiful sea green eyes looks up to me as she sits in the backseat of the car. Ian is driving us home from the airport.

Home, it took me a while to realize but now I can finally say Wade Valley is, and will always be my home. It's where I grew up, it's where I fell in love, it's where I had my first heartbreak and it's the kind of place I would like my children to grow up.

"Yes we are, how about we play a little game? I spy, with my little eye, something in the colour red."

"That's easy, Ian's shirt! Now it's my turn. I spy something green," she says.

We play this game for a couple more rounds before Isobel fell fast asleep. A few minutes later, Ian pulls up in front of our family homes. "That's it, we're here." He kills the engine and turns to look at me, then glances over to a sleeping Isobel and back. "Don't worry Kat, everything will be just fine. She's a very smart little girl and besides, you're not in this alone." He says as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "I love you Kat, it doesn't matter where we are, or who we are with, I am still in live with you and I'm not letting you fend for yourself."

Tears are now escaping from my eyes. "All this time, ever since I left this place right after junior, I searched for a place to call home. But now, after all these years, I'm not scared to call this town my home anymore. All the memories of this place, the good and the bad, made me who I am."

"Then why don't we just come back home? I mean, we both have only one semester left, I can continue my studies to become a paediatrician here in California, you can find a job here. We can start our new lives here, together." As he says this, his eyes never left mine and I can just feel how serious he's being.

The intensity of his words and his eyes have me completely speechless so all I can do is nod. And that's what I'm doing, nodding my had like an idiot before I pull him close and kiss him.

The road trip we did half a year ago was never about me getting home, it was all about me finding myself and accepting my past. "A journey is never the destination, it's the seatmate." Those words have proven to be true, the journey to finding myself, never would have happened without Ian by my side.