unsteady

the final chapter

          the first time you asked me how much i loved you, 

                            i said

                                "from here".

                                   you didn't understand.

                                                         when you were gone,

                                                                           i said

                                                                                       "to here."

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AN: hi guys. sorry in advance. but thank you for being on this ride with me. telling this story wasn't easy. i don't think it gets easier. but as time goes by, the wound will heal. and the sun will rise. and so will you.

also i am overwhelmed by not only the support and love for the book, but for me. you people have gone from being complete strangers to amazing friends. i couldn't be built up like i am without this incredible support system. you people, who are complete strangers, have become so important in my life, and encouraged me to never stop writing, and that i can't repay you enough for. this is why i believe there is so much good and kindness and positivity and joy in this world, at such dark times. <3

sixteen years later

Sean

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"What happened to her, Dad?" Hope asked, her eyes wide. "What happened to them, the boy and the girl from the sign?"

"He never saw the girl from the Hollywood sign again," Sean said, blinking away tears from his eyes so his daughters wouldn't see them. To tell the story hurt him every bit as much now as it did then, when he'd gone running the streets of the Hills to find her. 

"Do you know where she is?" Holly cried, sitting back on her haunches. "You have to know, Dad! You have to!"

"I don't," he sighed, gaze averted from his twins and sighted off into the distance, out the window. "Not a day goes by that I don't wish I do."

It wasn't completely false.

His daughters weren't really his, after all.

When they got older, they'd grow to see that they resembled nothing of their guardian's predominantly Asian features, and everything of their mother's. They'd also realize that he couldn't possibly be their father after never having been with another woman. You see, they'd put those pieces together and then he'd finally have to explain who they really were. And who the girl in the story really was. Who he really was.

And then they'd find out it was all real. 

__

At first, when she'd shown up at his door, with two babies, he'd thought things were finally coming back together, in some warped way. She'd made him promise he would take care of her children, and he'd made her promise she wouldn't leave. 

She was gone in the morning.

The only thing left behind was the note he kept in his room, on his bedside table, where it was everyday without fail.

Take care of them for me. I trust you.

And before you're mad,

We promised we'd only say goodbye once.