Page 120 of Oblivion

I can’t help it. I chuckle. “Come here, wife.”

“No,” she says again.

“You got fake engaged,” I say, struggling to keep the smile from my face.

“You got my fiancé to dump me,” she snaps indignantly.

“You and Starling manipulated me into claiming you,” I growl back.

“You drugged me and tattooed your initials on my skin,” she retorts.

“You lied to me.”

“You removed my birth control and got me pregnant.”

“You’re crazy.” My voice is softer now, less accusation and more endearment.

“So are you.” She matches my tone, her tense body relaxing a little. “Come here.”

My feet move until I’m standing in front of her only inches separating us.

“Close your eyes,” she demands.

Smiling, I close my eyes, feeling her movements as she closes the distance between us. The sound of a metallic snap has me opening my eyes and when I look down, I find her fingers tugging on a familiar silver padlock attached to a chain hanging around my neck. It’s the chain I had made to match the one I put on her.

Scoffing lightly, I lift the lock up and see the letters SM engraved into the metal.

“Mine,” Sammy says, her eyes heated and daring me to disagree.

“Yours,” I agree. “I love you, Sammy Morris.”

“I love you too,” she whispers back.

EPILOGUE

SAMMY

It’s a startling realization to learn the lengths a person will go to for love. For Evan and me, those lengths are a little more insane than most normal people, but that’s because this love we share isn’t normal.

A year ago, I craved the kind of love my friends had. I wanted the toxic, all-consuming, life-altering, grand love, and now I have it, and I’ve discovered that it’s not at all what I thought it would be.

Our love is toxic because we’ve both realized that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to be together. I love him enough to plot and trick and lure him into admitting that he’s mine, and he loves me enough to wrap me in chains and bind me to him in every single way imaginable.

Our love is all-consuming because when it’s just me and him, time truly does stand still. We survive in a bubble and forget the outside world exists and it’s perfect, even if it’s insane.

Our love is life-altering because we made a new life, a tiny person that I didn’t know I wanted until the very first time I saw them at the sonogram and realized that I was just as determined to keep my baby as I am to keep the man that tricked me into creating him.

Everything about Evan and me has been a grand love story, from the very first time we met to the day I used his tracker to find him, and we argued on the side of the road.

Things didn’t just magically turn out okay after that day, we didn’t just pretend that all the fucked-up things that brought us together didn’t happen. But we did admit that both of us being fucked up enough to do what we had to do to bring us together was why we were so perfect for each other in the first place.

Neither of us is sorry for things we’ve done to the other, and Evan hasn’t shown an ounce of remorse or guilt over his actions. He loves that I’m pregnant. He talks to my belly and is obsessed with the way my body is starting to change. I’m still mad at him. So, so, so mad. He changed both of our lives. He altered our futures and made decisions that should never have been his alone, but then I feel his hand on my stomach and remember that there’s a part of both of us growing inside of me, and even though it shouldn’t, it tamps down my ire.

He and I wasted so much time, and now that we’re together, I almost understand him wanting to race ahead, even if I don’t condone the way he got us here.

Our brand of love is life-altering. We went from oblivious to oblivion. We destroyed the lives we had before we were an us and created this new world together. It’s not pretty, and it’s not easy or peaceful, but it is love, and it’s real, and it’s us.

EPILOGUE

---