Forgetting Billions | ✓

36 | Forgetting Epilogues

SHAYAN KHAN was kneeling in front of Jasmine with a sleek black box resting in the palm of his hand. He looked up at her with unadulterated hope swirling in his dark eyes and Jasmine couldn't help but smile at the sight. For the first time in four years, she felt at peace and she knew that no one else could make her feel like this. She knew that no one else could possibly understand her the way her best friend did.

It wasn't surprising, then, that she grabbed Shayan by his shirt collar and pressed her lips to his, whispering a 'yes' between every kiss.

Jasmine never believed she'd make it to this point in her life. She thought she'd die at the ripe age of seventeen, her body strewn haphazardly on the floor of her Uncle Rahul's abandoned home in India.

When she survived her sacrifice, she adjusted her pessimism. Throughout her years in college, she believed she would never make it to an engagement because it was unlikely that any man would want someone who couldn't sleep for more than an hour without a nightmare jolting her awake. No man would want someone who rarely had any time outside of her medical school applications and weekly therapy appointments. No man would remain at her side when she opened up about the shooting, Selena, and all the dead family members she had once loved.

And she never thought Shayan would be the man to defy her beliefs. After all, they had taken a well-needed break once high school ended to focus on healing themselves without Selena there to tear them back down. That break continued until six months ago when Shayan transferred his CalTech credits to MIT so he could be closer to her. He claimed that talking on the phone with her every night as friends bordering on lovers would never be enough for him. He needed to be no further than an eight-minute drive from her Harvard dorm so he could do things like this– things like surprise proposals in the middle of the night.

She pulled away from Shayan after a blissful few minutes, trying to contain the ghost of a smile edging across her lips, and leaned against her desk. Her fingers ran over a tear-stained paper that she had meant to crumple up hours ago. Jasmine picked it up and scanned over the letter for what seemed to be the hundredth time, wondering if she should toss it into the roaring fireplace beside her.

Maybe she should risk it and send the vulnerable ramblings of her guilt-ridden heart to Evan Levington, anyway.

Maybe he'd appreciate it from his ironclad cell in Mayfair Hills County Jail.

Dear Evan,

I don't think I'll ever send this letter to you because I know I'm probably the last person you'd want to hear from. After all, I'm the reason your life was ruined. I'm the reason you're stuck in prison, probably in the same dingy cell that Bianca was locked in four years ago.

But, I needed to thank you. Thank you for killing Selena and for saving me, even though she was the love of your life. Thank you for serving time for what was probably the hardest thing you ever had to do. Thank you for using your free nights to call me, just so you can remind me to take the medication I always seem to forget about.

I am so sorry.

You didn't deserve to lose everything because of me, but if it helps, you've been added to the list of people who I will forever be indebted to.

Speaking of, did you know my parents haven't spoken to me for four years? And of course you know that they can't find the time to write, call, or send me a goddamn Facebook friend request to see if I'm even alive.

It's hard to owe people when they've completely written you out of their lives, but I understand. I deserve this pain.

I don't regret choosing Shayan, even slightly, so I know I'll never be able to get my parents back. I don't want them back, though, not after everything they did. And anyway, I found a family in Bianca and Aditya Karesh, who legally adopted me a month before my eighteenth birthday. They provided me a loving home when no one else would and that is more than enough for me.