So after writing this, I think we're closer to the end than I originally thought. I have a few more chapters (maybe three or so before the epilogue), but if you're willing to hang on through my sporadic updates, I'd be willing to keep going if there's anything specific you want to see or feel like you're missing. Thoughts?

PS this one might make you cry (but don't they all lol).

This is a battle we've won. – "This I Promise You" by NSYNC

Quil

Today's the day. No one—absolutely no one—is as excited as Brady. I don't even think that would be humanly possible.

Case in point: I don't think Brady would risk being late the way I was this morning. Claire follows behind me in the car she's started sharing with her sister, since Callie has her license now. And I'm glad, because Claire having a car means I get her in my bed more than ever.

She's only been home for four months, but I can't help but think four months with me is like years without me. We're good for each other in a way that can't be explained with words. She is just what's best for me.

I think that's what the imprint is, a twist on what Billy said forever ago: they make the wolf stronger. Claire makes me strong. Makes me want to be strong, so I can carry the weight of her world when it gets too heavy for her. There is nothing I go through in life that wouldn't be made better by her side.

But today's not about me, and if I travel too far on that train of thought, I'll probably end up stealing the show, which might not be the worst thing, if I didn't think Brady wouldn't immediately murder me.

Hell, Mia might do it for him at this point. The baby's due in two and a half months.

Claire climbs out of her car when I open her door, duffle bag slung over her shoulder. I take it from her, resting it against my own, and put my arm around her instead.

"Careful," she says, peering up at me with a playful gleam in her eyes. "A girl could get used to this kind of treatment."

I lean down and press my lips to her hair. "Would that be the worst thing?"

"No," she admits. "And besides, the closer I keep you, the easier it is to do this." She slides her hand off my waist and down to my ass, giving it a pinch.

I fight my body hard against the natural reaction, which is to turn us right around to my truck and do the same thing to her, only in private.

The side door to the fire station opens, Brady's head popping through. "You're late!" he yells across the parking lot. "I wanted to get one more practice in with everybody before Mia gets here."

"I think what we should do," Claire says, "is fix your hair, Brady."

Brady grabs it, tugs it even more out of shape as we reach him. "What's wrong with my hair?!"

"That, probably," I say, smacking his hand away before he makes himself bald. "She's gonna say yes, buddy. No need to worry."

Telling Brady not to worry today is like telling rain not to fall in Forks. It's not going to make a difference.

Mia's parents are here under the guise of Family Day, something Chief allows three or four times a year. It's why Claire's with me, why everyone has loved ones spilling out into the different spaces of this already cramped fire station. Why Omar is currently setting up an elaborate karaoke machine. Why Chief sprung for a good catered lunch.

Hopefully it will be a celebration.

Claire bumps my shoulder with hers. "Think she'll say yes?"

We look over at Mia, talking to her parents. Brady has been buzzing around all day, doing who knows what. Mia looks for him now, her hand resting on her stomach. She smiles when she sees him across the room.

"Yes," I say. I shouldn't add this next part, but I think about forever like this, her by my side, and I can't stop myself. "Would you?"

The only sign I've shocked her is the pink of her cheeks, which deepens toward ripe-cherry-red. "Say yes to Brady? Depends on the ring."

I let out a low growl that only she can hear. "Claire."

"I—"

The karaoke machine sings loudly as Omar finally gets the sound hooked up, and her answer is cut off as he starts checking the microphones.

"Anybody want to test her out?" Omar says. "Looking at you, Chief."

Brady didn't plan this part—I told him it'd feel too staged. But nobody steps toward Omar and the microphone, and I see the fear creep into Brady's eyes.

Claire must see it, too. "We'll go," she says, hopping up. She grabs my hand, tugging me to standing.

"My first victims," Omar says. He hands us each a mic. "Any requests?"

"Surprise us," I say.

Claire snorts as he turns back to the computer, then looks at me. "Hope you're ready to sing something from Grease."

She's happy, amenable. Until that first familiar note blares through the speakers.

And the smile slips right off her face.

Claire

A crack of loud thunder wakes me up. I know I'm a big girl now—seven entire years old—but Mom and Dad always let me cuddle whenever there's a storm or I have a nightmare. I think the world could fall down around us, but as long as I was in their bed, Callie and me tucked between them, we'd be just fine.

Mom likes to sing me to sleep sometimes, and she sings about all kinds of things, too. Rainbows a lot, and what's on the other side of them. Water and oceans and how much life they carry, just like us. Love, and that you should always love yourself just as much as you love other people.

But mostly, she sings to me about islands, right in the middle of this river. I didn't think that would be easy to get to, but Mom said it was the easiest place in the world to go, if you had the right people to go there with.

I move down the hall, then the stairs. Another boom of thunder makes me whimper. But I'm okay. I'm seven now, I remind myself. And seven-year-olds don't get scared of storms. I just need a glass of water, that's all.

A light shines at the bottom of the stairs, off in the living room, and I brace for the impact of another boom of thunder. But it doesn't come.

I'm on the next to last step when I hear Mom and Dad singing the song about the islands in the river. I love that song! I bet they'd love it if I join them. They encourage Callie and me to sing loud enough for the neighbors to hear us. Mom and Dad always make time for us, Mom especially. She loves to talk to me about my day, and I love to tell her about it.

Even if I am a little scared of the thunder—which I'm not—she won't make me feel silly. She'll tell me she is, too, and how we can get through it together. Always through, never over. Get through it, not get over it.

I still don't understand the difference.

I step onto the floor and see them then, and my nose wrinkles. I don't think there's any room for me after all, not with how close they're standing. Mom has her head thrown back, smiling at the ceiling, and I look up to see what she sees. Just the popcorns—whatever those are. I think Dad's trying to be quiet, to not wake us up I guess, because his mouth is really close to her neck and ear.

Mom's voice is so pretty. Even though it's quiet, I can't hear the thunder when she sings. I don't feel scared when she sings, not even a little.

I have the best mom in the whole world.

I think I'll stay here, right on this bottom stair, and just rest my head against the wall. So I can watch them sing to each other, hear her voice, and not see any lightning.

"Claire," Quil murmurs. In the background, the karaoke song continues, and I realize it isn't the first time he's said my name. "Hey, we don't have to sing. It's okay."

A quick glance around the room reveals everyone watching us. Omar looks confused, Brady is panicking in the corner, and Mia is sporting a frown that cuts into her pregnancy glow.

Words fly by on the screen, somewhere in the first chorus, if I had to guess. And I'm just standing here, thinking about the time I woke up during a thunderstorm to find my parents dancing to this in the living room.

I asked her once—my mom—what it meant, exactly: an island in the stream. She said that to her, it was a foundation. A solid rock in a strong current, a steady constant in the busyness of life that you could always count on for resting. Maybe it was family, or a good nap, or someone you loved. But they were there for you when everything else was moving too quick to grab hold of.

I looked it up for myself once, and I wasn't surprised to find that even the guess she'd pulled out of her ass was right. She was always right. The song was based on a book by Ernest Hemingway, about him being a painter or something in the between-war period of the early 1900's.

I've never read it, but I almost did. It was one of the books they recommended before taking the SAT. I chose The Great Gatsby.

It's about love and loss and family and friendship, and how to become an island for yourself, when even those things let you down. It's about depression and that sometimes, the journey isn't year by year or month by month or even day by day.

It's second by second.

Instant by instant.

Choice by choice.

I choose, every second, to keep breathing. I choose to keep fighting, to keep loving and laughing and celebrating, because life is—it's just fucking hard. And it hurts. And it's not fair.

And dwelling in all those ands will get me nowhere. Not anywhere worth going, at least.

Choosing to ask for help when you don't want to keep breathing on a beach in Thailand. That got me somewhere worth going.

Choosing to get out of the car at Thanksgiving and participate in family antics.

Choosing to give your sister space when she's mad at you, trusting you will find your way back.

Choosing to cut back on caffeine and get enough sleep and shower even when you don't feel like it. To go to therapy, to take medicine that makes you more human and less like a shell of one.

To love a man with all of yourself, even though it scares you how big your feelings are. Even though it's scary that you want everything with him. Even though you're young.

I choose me. I choose to accept that the Gray will always be a part of me, but I control how much power it has. And for when I can't control it, I will turn to the people who will help me fight it off.

"Sweetheart," Quil says, and I blink back into myself. The microphone in his hand is limp at his side, and his dark brows are furrowed so tightly together they might stay that way even after his face relaxes. He touches my arm, my shoulder, my face. "Why don't you let me take you home?"

There are rumbles, low whispers from everyone in the room.

But none of them are louder than my mother. She makes the thunder go away.

She is in all these notes. Her voice is woven into me, into my bones. I got her face, but also her heart.

So I say, "I'm okay."

Quil looks like he doesn't believe me, and I give him a reassuring nod. I take his hand, squeeze it. Make sure not to answer too quickly so he knows I'm telling the truth. "I promise, Quil. Please. I want to."

I nod again, and he lets out a slow breath. "Okay."

"Good," I say.

His smile is blinding, and I want to keep it forever, right next to the sound of my mother. A corner of my heart, for all these tiny, lovely things. "Great."

When Quil restarts the song this time, my heart still kicks up. But not with bad memories, not with grief or fear. It's with love.

I'm not going to say I don't cry. I do, a little. My voice is shaky, and I don't sound good. The words are jumbled, and if this was American Idol I'd be on the Worst Auditions reel.

But Quil is there. The only person who kept fighting for me when I couldn't fight for myself. He holds my hand through it, the way I know he will with all my bad days. He dances with me, laughing as I complete a messy spin under his arm.

By the time the song finishes, we're both crying from laughter instead of from grief, and when he pulls me in for a hug and whispers "Proud of you," somehow, it's my mother's voice I hear.

And later, after a few more songs and Brady nods to the boys that it's showtime, I'm able to laugh again as they perform to NSYNC and have the crowd roaring as, at the end, he drops to one knee.

Mia says yes.