By Next Thursday

Epilogue

I groaned and glared at the blackened pieces of toast before me. Scraping off the burnt edges wasn’t producing anything pretty so I began to angrily poke the bread with my knife, mumbling a string of cuss words and aggressive threats.

A pair of warm, strong arms slid around my waist and I was met with a soft laugh in my ear. “Stabbing your food doesn’t make you a good cook, princess,” Jay murmured.

“I am to a good cook,” I scowled at the toast as if it personally offended me.

“Are not.”

“Are to.”

“God you’re annoying,” he spun me around and gave me a quick kiss on the nose. “I just came in to say good morning, sheesh.” His arms remained around my body in a rather protective position, a habit he had never quite broken. Jay had a pattern of constantly touching me that I’m not sure if he even noticed, as if his subconscious was warning him that I might not be real or could vanish at any given moment.

“Well. Good morning to you to. I was just going to bring you breakfast in bed!” I grinned brightly, giving him a kiss. I then stuffed my plate of burnt toast into his hands and quickly escaped to the shower. Within minutes I was smiling into the hot streams of waters while he loudly grumbled about my abysmal cooking skills through the door.

Jay and I had been official together since the day I was released from the hospital, nearly a year ago. He was with me for every step of the way, including months of arduous physical therapy and piles of school work that I was too mentally strained to finish at my old pace. It took me months to recover physically, both from the injuries and damage to my nervous system. It took me another three weeks after my cut fully healed just to walk again.

At graduation, my dad finally offered me the partnership at his firm if I was interested in going to law school. Surprise was an understatement to how I felt when he told me I could do whatever I wanted as a career and he would support it. He chose not to pressure me anymore and wanted to gain back the years he lost.

I decided to do law anyway, not only because of my father but because I wanted to be the voice for someone like me. The months following my kidnapping were horrible, between hours of case work, media coverage, and the actual ordeal of going to court. I had needed all the support I could get at the time and I earned a whole new respect for lawyers. Helping people was what I wanted to do because not a day went by that I didn’t think about the nightmare I went through.

Drying off, I couldn’t help but grimace at the long, rippled scar in my upper thigh; the biggest and ugliest reminder of my past. It was the only bit of physical evidence that displayed my constant fears and shattered confidence in the world. I turned my gaze back to the sink, though, and the sight of Jay’s shaving creams and cologne brought my smile back as I was reminded that all of it brought us together.

People thought we were crazy for moving in together after only a few months of dating, but when we decided to attend the same college shortly after my recovery, Jay had admitted to being worried about letting me live in a dorm. I also dreaded being alone and had a suffocating fear of new people that my therapist said could take years to overcome. So, in the end we decided to rent a tiny apartment together just off campus. And we were happy.

Our freshman year of college flew by in a blur and my life had gotten nothing but better since. Meredith was still in touch, she visited regularly and we still got to see her at family parties since we knew she was related to Jay now. However, she went to college closer to home so we didn’t get to see her every day. As for everyone else I was “friends” with in school, I hadn’t seen them since graduation.

I had, however, tried to track down Molly the psychic to thank her for helping Meredith, Jay, and I during my week long plight of being a ghost. I also had countless unanswered questions that she was my best hope at finding out.  She had disappeared though and we never heard from her again. I was strangely sad, despite having never properly met her in person, and occasionally my mind would drift to where she could have vanished to.

Finishing up in the bathroom, I followed my nose and ended up back in our pint-sized kitchen. “Breakfast?”

Jay chuckled and placed a plate in front of me. “Don’t worry. I saved the day with me superior skills.”

I looked down and saw that he made pancakes. My chest constricted as I reminded my dream while I was unconscious in the hospital. He had the same carefree features and lit up eyes as I remembered and I felt myself fall a little bit more in love. Smiling, I looked up at him. “I love you.”

Jay’s smirk softened into a real smile and he bent down to meet my lips. “I love you more.” He turned back to the stove where his pancakes were cooking. “Oh yeah, your grandmother called again about some summer gathering at her country club, blah, blah, blah, and then bitched me out again about your virtue or something.”

I snorted. “Typical old-fashioned grandma.”

Jay settled down next to me and sighed. “You know, she wouldn’t be so pissed if we weren’t living together. This would be way easier if we were married. Pass the syrup.”

I choked on a mouthful of pancakes, throwing myself into a coughing fit. Jay patted my back with an entertained twinkle in his eye. With one last clearing of my throat, I looked at him in surprise. “What did you just say?”

“I said pass the syrup,” he said with a straight face, but his lip twitched, giving away his amusement.

I shook my head in annoyance. “No, not that.”

“Oh, that?” Jay’s eyes widened and I nodded rigorously. “Yeah, I said your grandmother wouldn’t hate me so much if we didn’t live together,” he smirked in response.

“Jay,” I whined.

He threw his head back and laughed. “Fine. I said this would be easier if we were married.”

“Did you just indirectly propose, Jay Carmichael?” I grinned, putting my chin in my hand.

His smirk never wavered. “I dunno, did I?”

I knitted my eyebrows. “I think you sorta did.”

Jay’s smirk split into a real smile and he slipped his hand onto the table, revealing a little velvet, black box. He leaned in and took my hand. “I think you’re sorta right,” he whispered.

It wasn’t a conventional proposal and we were anything but a conventional couple. We still fought like World War III and had constant anxiety stemming from our past that had yet to disappear, but his kiss still sparked the same warmth from my chest to my toes just as it always had.

Just as it always will.