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Everyone began cheering and congratulating us on our future together, and I felt as if my dream had somehow turned into my new reality

Tristan pulledwith his as he kissed me for the first time in what felt like centuries He held his lips toall ofto love hiainst one another, and I sighed, staring down at the ring on er "Does this mean you want to hire me?"

He sweptme up with happiness, hope, and all of his love "I do"

Epilogue

Tristan

Five Years Later

Under the wooden dining room table that E They’d transformed the table into a fort, the saht atched movies and camped out inside our house Emma claimed to be too old to play make-believe anymore, but when her baby brother, Colin, asked her to play, she couldn’t say no

Colin was handsohed like her, cried like her, and loved like her too Each time he kissed my forehead, I kneas the luckiest man alive

I crawled under the table next tosto yet anotheryet another beauty to our family

For a long time, I just stared at Lizzie, Eling under Eotten a second chance at life? How had I become so happy? I re in the hospital rooone I’d left that day too Life stopped existing, and I stopped breathing

Then Elizabeth ca the dark shadows flood with light A light so bright that I slowly began to believe in happily ever todays No more pains of yesterdays, nothe past and didn’t choose to reach for the future Instead, I chose us as ere I chose today

Some days were still hard, and others, the easiest We loved in a way that only brought ht days, we held each other close During the dark days, we held each other closer

I lay beside Elizabeth, wrapping her against my body, and she pulled in closer to me Her brown eyes opened, and her sweet sood?" she whispered