Roses for Rachel

Epilogue

Looking back on that day is always the hardest.

The memory creeps up on me at the strangest times. While I'm taking a shower, or while I'm on my morning run. I'm haunted by our goodbye, but I'm blessed to have had the time I had with him.

Coming to terms with it all had been really hard. When I woke up in the backseat of that black car, a stranger behind the wheel, and the sun beginning to rise on the horizon in front of me, I had a flood of emotions. I was purely devastated that Calvin had sent me away, not giving me the chance to decide for myself what I wanted, but instead, he took my choice, and in turn made me feel unwanted. Then I was angry. For hours in that car I was fuming mad, thinking of all of the missed clues, and knowing so many people around me knew I was just the walking fool. I was nothing but a tiny piece in the game that Gordo had put into motion. I hated him, and for a while, Calvin too, for keeping me in the dark for so long. As I boarded my plane the next day, back home to the US, I started to let go of the resentment...Just a little at a time. The flight was long, and full of tears too. Tears for my lost life, tears for my lost friends, tears for the lives of thousands of other girls just like me, and most of all tears for him...my lost love.

Calvin lied to me, so many times in so many ways, but he loved me too. As hard as it was to wrap my brain around it, I knew it was true, and thinking of myself in his own position, I wasn't sure how much I would have or could have done differently. I was so angry with him still, right up until the moment that I got off of my flight, and walked into the busy airport terminal in Nevada. Even with all of the hundreds of other people, rushing around and going about their everyday lives like everything was normal, I saw her in the crowd. Her thick strawberry blonde curls, standing out from the rest of the crowd.

My mother.

Vampires may have taken so much from me, but it was Calvin, the man who loved me enough to force me to leave him, even though it undoubtedly caused him enormous pain to do so, who gave me back the most important thing.

Seeing her there, and feeling her familiar embrace made so much of the hurt I'd secretly carried for years and years, evaporate.

Calvin was right, she still lived in the same little house on the corner of Birch Street, and not a thing had been changed. Momma told me that she always believed I was still out there and that she knew one day I'd be coming home to her. She promised not to ask any questions. She explained that she had been contacted a few days prior and told that I would be coming home, and that she knew the circumstances were strange, but that she was just happy I was home.

That night when I curled up into my little blue twin sized bed in my own childhood bedroom, I finally pulled the letter from the envelope.

My beautiful Rachel,

I'm not even sure how to start this letter, other than to say how sorry I am. If you're reading this, it means that I was finally able to be the man you needed me to be, and you're on your way home to where you belong. I hate myself for all the ways I hurt you, but I hope that one day, you'll be able to find it in that big heart of yours to forgive me. I know I made so many mistakes, but loving you was never one of them. Please know that my feelings for you are the strongest thing I've ever felt, and know that I never lied to you about that. What we had, although fleeting, was the realest and truest of loves, and I can never thank you enough for showing me what it is like to love someone so much that you put their own needs above your own. My hope for you is that you live, Rachel. Live a life without regrets, without questions, without fear. LIVE! Be the strong, radiant, smart, and loving girl that you are! Share your heart with the world. Enjoy the sun, the wind, and the rain. I hope that every day is a new adventure for you, and if you get lost a few times along the way, that's ok, sometimes getting lost leads you to things you never even knew you wanted to find. I hope that every day is filled with happiness for you, I hope you find love again, I hope that when you do, that that man knows just how lucky he is to have you at his side. I hope you get everything you deserve out of life: happiness, love, laughter, success, and cobbler...don't forget your cobbler. I vow to you, there will not be a single day that goes by, for the rest of my existence, where you don't cross my mind. I love you, so much more than you could ever imagine. Wipe away your tears, beautiful girl. Breathe. I love you, Rachel.