NOVEL NEXT Epilogue
The weather is nice today. The autumnal breeze is a little chilly, but it doesn’t get through my beige trench coat.
The sky is clear and beautiful and the trees around campus have turned colourful. I love the contrast against the cold and sometimes bleak weather. I like to think that those beautiful colours are their way of celebrating another year of bloom, another cycle of life.
“Hey, pretty,” Alex says, coming closer. He’s wearing a hoodie and jeans and in spite of the simpleness, I like how it looks on him. I like the way he looks. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you,” I say with just a little sassiness to my voice and get up. “The others are already in the cafeteria.”
We have friends now and not just a few. There are lots of interesting and funny people around here and it didn’t take all that long to find them. Of course, I have friends back at home, too.
Mika and Emma. It was a long process, getting back together with them. At first, I only went to dancing practice with them because I realised that I wanted to become better at it and fuck Claire
, she wouldn’t be able to take that from me. Then I occasionally talked to them in class and later sat with them. They never tried anything, never were anything but nice. We met a few times at my place with Alex there and we talked and talked and I got to trust them again. We even went to a party together with Alex and Shay.Shay is also a friend I have at home. We get along great and they were a major factor in the recomposition of my confidence. For now they’ve kept true to their word and not even given me drugs even when, on an especially giddy and wild occasion, I’d specifically asked them to.
And then there’s Isa. We talk almost daily on the phone. She helped Alex and I decorate our new place once we’d moved in and since then she’s been over to visit twice. Life is going great.
“And you wanted to wait for me rather than sit with them?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
I don’t dream of Claire anymore. A few months after the whole incident she was sentenced to several years in prison for attempted murder and even after that she won’t ever be allowed to get within a certain radius of me.
I kept the bracelet, though. By the time I didn’t need it anymore, I’d gotten so used to it that it felt wrong to take it off. Reyna took the batteries out, so it’s not much use anymore, but it doesn’t need to be for me to wear it. It’s a symbol, now. A symbol that – contrary to all my initial expectations – I am up to this.
“I have whole seminars with them that you aren’t in, you ditz,” I tell him. “But if I’m gonna wait with eating until you’re there, anyway…”
“You’re such a romantic.” He rolls his eyes.
“I am.” I squeal, hugging him from the side, almost making him run into a pillar. “I’m a romantic and I’m proud of it!”
And now I've got a few things to say.
First of all, thank you for reading :) Special thanks go to PepitoBat (y'all can thank them that I'm writing this story in the first place) and Saltlick for commenting so much and keeping me motivated and CassieSandwich for helping me figure out both the storyline and my own fucking identity XD It really means a lot to me that so many people seem to care in some way or another about this story I poured so much work into. Speaking of work, please leave a final review if you've come this far. I totally get how not everybody has something to say every chapter, but if you've read this story from start to finish and enjoyed it, why not give a little of that back? Don't know what to say? Let me help you. What was your favourite scene? What did you feel while reading that scene? What kept you engaged and interested in the potline?
If you've got something to critique, please go ahead, but be civil about it. There's no need to cuss me or any of the characters out and yes, I'm no professional author, I make mistakes, too, and I'm very aware that this story isn't perfect :)
I've also got a few announcements to make. First of all, I've created a Discord server for people to connect to me and others who liked my work(s) - no, I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I'm pretty new to server creation and everything, but I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out together XD. You're all very welcome to join, I'm looking forward to meeting you. (Here's the link: https://discord.gg/JHxRktxMe9)
Now for the next two big announcements! Tomorrow, I'm going to release the prologue of the next book - Your Superhero - on TGST and Scribblehub (mby also on Wattpad, let's see how motivated I am lol) and along with it, I'm going to start a Patreon! I love writing and it's what I put kind of all my time into, so why not try to make a little money with it? If you liked this story and want to support me, it'd mean a lot to me if you checked it out :) Content will be access to special channels on Discord, early access to three chapters ahead of schedule (I plan on following a weekly posting schedule, but we'll see how well I can keep that up throughout the semester), potential short stories, poetry and story ideas I won't ever have the time to bring to life fully (I just have way too many loll). I'll try to put up all that stuff into my linktree and my profile and probably the prologue of the next story as well.
So yeah, I suppose this concludes what I have to say. Again, thanks for reading, please leave a comment and see you in the next one!