Epilogue

(Roughly a year and a handful of months later)

My phone lit up and buzzed against the coffee table. I hugged my open book against my chest and did half of a sit-up to reach it.

E: Sunrise or sunset?

A smile pulled at my lips, but I bit my cheek to keep it from spreading too wide.

I: If it's sunrise, would there be coffee?

E: Well, duh, Swan. What kind of amateur do you take me to be?

I: Meh. I'd still go with sunset, unless you stay up so late that the sunrise means bedtime. You?

E: You're so cute.
E: And it's sunsets for me, baby. I'm all for bedtime if you'll be there. ;)

I rolled my eyes and nudged him with my toe. Edward sat by my feet on the other end of the couch, that stupid, sexy smirk that I so adored spread wide across his lips. He kept his eyes down on his phone, even though I was right next to him.

E: Your turn.

It was a game we played sometimes, and even though we'd been sharing an apartment for nearly a year, his texts still made my belly flutter. We'd only made it a month after our trip to Indianapolis before Edward flew out to visit me in Seattle (though, honestly, I suspect that this whole thing was a scheme to get into my apartment and doctor my sick houseplants— you should have seen the way he clicked his tongue, PH reader and fertilizer in hand, when he finally got to inspect my poor pothos). He met Jake and Charlie, which went about as well as could be expected. I was even more nervous to introduce Edward to Alice, but she purred like a helicopter when he scooped her into his arms. Then, Edward and I spent a blissful, unforgettable thirty-six hours hiding from the Seattle rains inside of my tiny, "artsy" (his word, not mine) apartment.

It was another agonizing two weeks after that before I could fly to Chicago to meet the Cullens. They were wonderful and welcoming, and I could see so much of Edward in the way that they all loved one another. I didn't even blush too pink when Emmett introduced me to newborn Elodie as an official member of the family. ("Ellie-bee, this is your Aunt Seattle," Emmett crooned, holding his daughter up so that I could see her pudgy little baby lips. Rosalie smacked him hard. "Don't embarrass her." Emmett looked at Edward, exasperated. "Well, we all know Eddie here could never do better—" Rosalie hit him again, and Edward dropped a smiling kiss into my hair.)

A week after that, Edward talked Josh into letting him work from the Seattle branch for a few weeks. He brought Jasper with him this time, and I swear that those two lovebirds put Edward and I to shame. They are completely smitten with one another. Jasper follows Alice around like he's been waiting for her his whole life, and Alice blooms under his constant fawning.

I: Which is more likely to be real? Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster?

E: Have you met my siblings? They're both real, and they're both Cullens.

I snorted, and he grinned, proud of his own joke.

I: The Cullen Cryptids? That makes you what? A Chupacabra? Werewolf?

Now he was laughing at my joke.

E: A Werewolf? Please, Swan. I would prefer to be something more dignified. A vampire, perhaps. But seriously, I would say yes to the probability of a Bigfoot-like creature and no to Nessie. You?

I: Oh, yes to all. I think they're all real. And a vampire? Yum.

Edward rolled his eyes next to me, and then emphasized his point by sending me an eye-roll emoji.

E: You and your conspiracy theories. You're a weirdo, you know. A strange, adorable weirdo.

I giggled, and he reached over and tickled the bottom of my thigh. I retaliated, digging my toes into the soft spot beneath his ribs and making him grit his smiling teeth as he reached for more of my leg. Alice jumped onto the back of the couch to see what all the commotion was about, and Jasper wasn't far behind her.

"Can I help you?" Edward said aloud to the cats. That was one of our rules. We weren't allowed to speak to one another, but the cats were free game. Alice tipped her head to the side.

I: Step up to the plate, Cullen. Your turn.

We liked to keep the same format to our games as we had established during that one fateful Zoom call— we alternating asking the questions, and each person had to take a turn answering each question. If more detail was desired, the questioning party had to forfeit their next turn.

Edward rubbed his chin as he tried to think up another question. I quirked a challenging eyebrow at him, and he chuckled. After a year of this game, we had to be creative.

After his two-week stay in Seattle, Edward had gone to Josh to plead for a permanent transfer. Now, he spent his days at the Zurnips Seattle office, kicking butt and taking names. Mike was so upset with the new arrangement that he put in his two weeks, not that any of us were sad or anything.

I put in my own two-week notice not long after Mike, but for reasons entirely different. Edward had read some of my writing, and he insisted that it would be a crime against society for me to continue at my day job when I could be working on another novel.

Before Edward, I had never let another soul read my manuscripts. Not Angela. Not Jake. Not even Tyler. But there's something about the soft way Edward looks at me— like the sun shines and the wind blows and flowers sprout just for me— that had me curling up in his arms, my back to his chest, with my laptop perched on my knees, ready to share this part of my heart with him. Not only did Edward listen as I read him my first chapter, but he laughed and gasped and asked questions in all the right places. When I stopped reading to start prepping dinner, Edward's eyes stayed on the screen, zooming back and forth with apt interest. I didn't get my laptop back until the next day. After a few weeks of raving about my characters and pleading with me to trust that he truly enjoyed it, he finally convinced me to submit my novel to a publisher.

I just signed my first book deal last week. All because of him.

Even Jake can see how happy I am with Edward. They had a rough start to their friendship. The first time Jake met Edward, he was worse than Charlie. He crossed his arms over his chest like a bouncer and asked him a thousand probing questions. He was uptight and border-line rude until the day that Edward moved in with me.

I still laugh when I think about the stupid, slack-jaw daze that came over Jacob's face when he saw the other half of Edward's two-man moving crew— none other than Vanessa Cullen herself. She strolled in with a plant stand under one arm and box of socks in the other, her long auburn ponytail swinging behind her, and Jake miraculously forgot he was supposed to be hating Edward. When he learned she was studying Aerospace Engineering, I swear I saw actual hearts pop out of his eyes. He's like a besotted little puppy dog around her. Luckily, Vanessa is on her third round of interviews with the Seattle Boeing plant, so she should be moving out this way soon.

Three dots rolled by over and over again in Edward's speech bubble. He was still typing? I glanced up, surprised to see his eyes on me. He looked... anxious. I sent him a silent, questioning look, but I didn't dare break the rules of our game by speaking aloud.

I: What? Can't think of a question?

He smiled at me, but it was soft and vulnerable instead of his typical flirty smirk. Something about it made my mouth go dry.

I: Spit it out, Cullen. You're making me nervous.

He glanced down at his phone and rubbed his chin again. When his eyes met mine again, my heart fluttered like a hummingbird's wings. His thumb moved, sending whatever it was he had already typed.

E: Bella, will you marry me?

I gasped. I tried to read it again, but my eyes were suddenly too blurry to make out the words. I pushed my glasses up onto my head and looked up at Edward. His eyes were full of warmth and adoration and promises and forevers.

"Really?" I whispered, sitting forward to get closer to him.

He laughed, tears spilling down his cheeks. "Shh." He motioned to my phone.

At one point in my life, I had sworn to never entertain the idea of marriage again. I was jaded and so broken, and the idea of letting someone else inside the walls of my heart was nothing short of terrifying.

So much has changed in the last year, but I embrace it all. Living with Edward isn't perfect. We still misunderstand one another. We still argue— shit, we argue— but every time I try to run, every time I try to pull my bruised heart back out of his hands and put my walls back up, he's right there after me, apologizing and reassuring me and promising me that he's committed to working things out. And we do work things out. Every argument leaves us stronger, and every argument leaves me more sure that he's going to stay. It wasn't like that with Tyler.

I know now, too, that— just as Edward wasn't Tyler— I am not my mother. I don't have to make the same mistakes as she did. She may have abandoned me, but that doesn't mean I am abandoned. And it doesn't mean I will do the same to my husband and children. We each get to make our own choices in life, and I already knew that I will always, always choose to stay.

So I typed my answer without a single ounce of fear.

I: Yes

Edward let out a triumphant laugh, reaching to pull me into his arms. "Yes? Really? Yes?"

I held out my hand and gave him a reproving look, going back to typing on my phone.

I: Um, excuse me. What about the rules? You have to answer the same question. Will you marry me?

He chuckled and shook his head, exasperated.

E: You really going to steal my proposal thunder like that, baby?

I shrugged, grinning like a fool at the joy in his eyes.

I: I didn't make the rules, Cullen. ;)

E: Yes, I will absolutely marry you, Isabella Swan. Every day, over and over, for the rest of our lives. Can I kiss you now?

So that's what we did. Every day, over and over, for the rest of our lives.

Thank you so much for reading. I haven't written in a long, long time. I've actually been avoiding fanfiction all together, worried about the stories I've left hanging, terrified to see all of the angry reviews about not finishing my story. To my surprise, there were only a handful of those. It was refreshing and touching to see the number of encouraging messages and reviews I received in my absence. I hope this epilogue leaves you satisfied. I love working with other authors, and if any of you ever wanted to make a sequel to this story, you have my blessing. :) MMP