Page 177 of Always Us

So at least for now, Pearce is free from the organization. Pearce is also free on a personal level. After divorcing Katherine, he wasn’t forced to marry someone else, so he’s been single for years now. Katherine married that senator, but he’s no longer a senator. His conservative voters were angry when they found out he’d been dating a married woman and got her pregnant. He wasn’t re-elected so had to go back to his regular life as a Manhattan attorney. He and Katherine had a son, but just like with Lilly, Katherine has no interest in being a mom. A nanny raises the kid while Katherine tries to establish herself again among the social elite. So far, she’s been shunned, and last I heard, she was trying to convince her husband to move to France so she could live next to her sister and try to latch on to her sister’s high society friends. Even though Katherine lives close to Connecticut, she rarely sees Lilly. It’s like Katherine forgot she even has a daughter.

Lilly is 10 now. She still goes to private school and her favorite subject is art. She’s a really good artist. She can sketch, paint, sculpt—all that stuff that takes creative skills I don’t have. When she used to color me all those pictures, I always thought they were really good for someone her age. I guess she had a talent for art early on. She also still takes swim lessons, and when she gets to middle school, she’s going to try out for the swim team. Garret is so proud of her. Every time we go visit her, she races Garret in the pool. She hasn’t beat him yet, but someday she might.

Frank is doing well. He has his good days and bad, but mostly good. He married Karen two summers ago. It was a small outside wedding in Des Moines with just friends and family. And then that fall, Ryan married Chloe. It was sooner than any of us expected, given Ryan’s insistence on waiting, but once he no longer had to worry about Frank, he was ready to marry Chloe. Ryan’s still in med school, but Chloe graduated and is now in her residency.

Going back to Garret’s company, since buying it, he’s been working nonstop, trying to learn as much as possible and coming up with strategies to make it grow. He already knows a lot about the company because the guy he bought it from has been Garret’s mentor for the past few years. He taught Garret all aspects of the business; the financial side, the sales side, the product side, and more. Pearce has also been mentoring Garret, teaching him all the stuff he’s learned after years of running a successful company.

In this company they bought together, Pearce is more of a silent partner. He lets Garret run the show, but is available if Garret needs advice or has a question. Garret has such a great relationship with Pearce now. It’s so much different than when I met him.

And I love Pearce. He’s like a dad to me. Frank will always be my first dad, but Pearce is definitely my other dad. We talk on the phone all the time. He’s still super busy with work, but he never rushes me off the phone. Pearce has helped me be more confident in myself. He tells me to go for stuff and not back down from things I’m afraid to do. Garret tells me the same things, but it’s different coming from Pearce. Garret will sometimes tell me I’m good at stuff even when it’s not really true. But Pearce isn’t afraid to tell me what I need to work on and how to use my strengths to overcome my weaknesses. I find that empowering and I use it in my business.

Yes, I have a business now. I help teens who are at the same dark place I was at years ago, find their way back to the light. I speak at conferences, workshops, summer camps, youth shelters, schools, and more. Ever since I spoke to that group in Des Moines, I started getting requests to speak again. Then word spread and the jobs just kind of found me. I did about five speaking events a year when I was in college, but since then, I’ve done a lot more. And I love it. I absolutely love my job.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to relive what I went through, especially when I see a girl’s face in the audience and I can tell she’s stuck in that same horrible place I was stuck at for so many years. But I keep giving these speeches, hoping my words will help. I don’t always know if they do, but occasionally I get an email telling me how I changed someone’s life. The first time I got one of those, I cried for 10 minutes straight. I couldn’t believe I had that much of an effect on someone. Even today, those emails make me cry.

While we’re on the subject of helping people, I should mention our charities. The summer after our sophomore year, Garret formed Rachel’s Swim Club, a non-profit organization that provides free swim lessons to kids. It’s named after his mom, who always wanted every kid to know how to swim. Garret convinced his mentor at WaveField Sports to help him out by providing equipment and using his connections to help get the program up and running. It’s now in 20 states and is modeled after the program at Camsburg, where members of college swim teams volunteer their time to teach kids how to swim.

Garret and I also started The Taylor Foundation, named in memory of my mom and her parents, who I never got to meet. The foundation gives out money to people like Sara, who need help making ends meet. People can go online and nominate someone they know who needs help. They can either provide the money themselves or they can ask the foundation for the money. But however it’s done, the person remains anonymous, just like with our fake foundation. The recipient never knows who nominated them or the source of the money. It could be us, or whoever it was who nominated them. We have a staff of people who review all the nominations and send the money out. So far we’ve helped a lot of people and it was all inspired by Sara.

I almost forgot about Sara, probably because I never see her anymore and she’s too busy to call me, which I totally understand because she and Alex have a new baby girl. Sara and Alex got married two years ago, then moved to Oregon, where Alex got a job as a junior architect. They have a house with a big back yard for Caleb to play in. He’s almost four years old now. Sara’s been taking classes at the community college, but she’s taking this semester off since she just had a baby.

Alex has been a great dad to Caleb. He even adopted him after a long legal battle with Brandon, Caleb’s father. When Brandon found out Alex wanted to adopt Caleb, he fought the adoption and tried to get custody of Caleb. Brandon was just being a jerk and everyone knew it, but the law is the law and he is Caleb’s father so he has rights.

Sara was a mess when this happened. She didn’t eat. She didn’t sleep. She was totally stressed. She and Alex couldn’t afford all the legal fees so Garret’s fake rich friend stepped in again and paid for the best lawyer we could get. The lawyer proved to the court that Brandon never wanted Caleb and had no intention of being a father and that he was only doing this to stop the adoption. Eventually it all got settled and Alex was able to adopt Caleb. I’d love to see them again and see how much Caleb’s grown. Sara said they’ll come visit when the baby is a little older, maybe next summer. I told her she has to stay with us in the house. We have plenty of room and I like having people over.

Our house is now completely done. We built it last year and moved in right after graduation. The pool was put in last May and Grace moved into the guest house in June. I love having her live right next door to us. Garret’s been traveling a lot for the business so it’s nice to have Grace around so I’m not alone. She doesn’t like being alone either so it works out well. She’s been planting flowers around her house, using the same flower map she showed me a few years ago. She also started a garden with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and herbs. She’s never grown vegetables before so she’s excited to see how her garden turns out.

So yeah, a lot has happened the past few years and things are good.

CHAPTER FORTY

Garret's 24th Birthday

JADE

Things are still crazy busy with Garret and me. WaveField Sports has really taken off and we’ve opened three more stores in California and are looking at expanding into more states. We already have stores in Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon, but are hoping to open a store in Colorado in the next year or so.

I’ve become a lot more involved with the business. Last spring, Garret asked if I wanted to help expand the women’s line of clothing and sporting goods and, of course, I said yes. I love all that stuff, and now I get to check out all the latest items before they come out and decide if we should carry them in our stores.

Owning a sporting goods store has expanded my interest in all kinds of sports. I’m not just running anymore. I’m doing other sports as well. Garret’s been teaching me how to surf and I’ve been swimming in our pool and I’ve even taken yoga classes. I used to think yoga was boring but I’ve come to like it. It’s helped me build strength and increase my flexibility, which has made me a better runner. I did a marathon last May just to see if I could run that far. I finished it, but I wouldn’t do one again. I like to run just to run, not to compete. And I no longer use running to escape my problems. Instead I use it to clear my mind and relax.

I’m still speaking to young women, but have had so many requests that I had to turn some down. It was getting to be too much travel. Plus, I’m trying to get more involved with WaveField and I can’t do that if I’m never around. So I cut back to just two or three trips a month, and when I’m home I do video chats with high school students and community groups. I absolutely love what I do. I can’t imagine a better job. It doesn’t even feel like a job. It just feels like what I was meant to do.

I used to wonder why bad things happened to me. Why I had to grow up in such a bad home with an abusive mother and not enough money for food. I used to wonder what I did to deserve that. Why I had to suffer when other people didn’t. But now, I almost feel like I was meant to go through that. Like I had to in order to get to the place I’m at now. And using my experience to help others has helped me get over the pain I felt from the hell I went through as a kid. It’s helped me heal and grow and become a stronger person.

“Hey.” Garret comes up behind me in the kitchen, his arms circling my waist. “Thanks for dinner.”

Tonight was his birthday dinner. I made him lasagna, like I did the first year we were married. Only this time, I didn’t actually make it. I ordered it from his favorite Italian place and just heated it in the oven. He didn’t want to go out. We love our house so much that we tend to stay in a lot. He cooks or we get takeout and then we eat outside on the patio, which overlooks the ocean. Living here is even better than the dream I had in my head. It’s amazing.

I turn to face him, looping my arms around his neck. “You ready for dessert?”

He smiles. “What are we having? Chocolate cake?”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Ice cream?”

“Try again.”

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