Page 31 of Born to Run Back
His answer was a kiss that tasted of tears and of joy and of the particular sweetness of truly being known by a person. We moved together with the rhythm of people who were learning each other’s bodies through patience rather than desperation, building toward something that felt inevitable and miraculous all at once.
When release finally claimed us both, it was with the quiet intensity of coming home rather than the violent explosion of an escape. We lay tangled together afterward, our skin cooling in the evening air, hearts gradually slowing from their frantic pace.
“I’m glad we waited,” I said, my fingers tracing lazy patterns across his chest, feeling utterly content for the first time in years.
“And I’m glad we found each other again,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “The right way this time. And Wendy?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
I smiled. “I know,” I said, thinking of all the steps that had led us here—coffee shops and hiking trails, poetry and paintings, the slow unveiling of two people learning to trust love built outside of a need but rather awant.
Outside of my window, the city lights twinkled brilliantly like stars, and I thought about how our journey had begun in darkness, clinging to each other above a ravine, mistaking our shared trauma for destiny. Now we got to lie in the golden glow of lamplights streaming in from outside, having discovered something infinitely more precious: the choice to love someone not because they saved you from drowning, but because they taught you how toswim.
“What happens now?” I asked, and I wasn’t the least bit afraid of the answer.
“Now,” Theo said, his strong arms tightening around me, “we get to find out what we can build when we’re not running from anything.”
And for the first time since that horrific October night, the future felt like a gift rather than something to endure.
Epilogue
Everything After
Theo
Spring,fiveyearslater
The pressure against my chest was different now. Not that smothering gravity of grief that had once robbed my breath, but the sweet, grounding warmth of Beck—four months old, his tiny body nestled against me like he was a part of my heartbeat. His fist curled into the dark fabric of my shirt, his breaths syncing with mine as we followed the canyon road that had once changed our lives.
Mile marker eighteen appeared smaller in the daylight, somehow. The guardrail gleamed, long since repaired, the scars in the earth softened, covered by fresh shrubbery and growth. Wildflowers dotted the desert in impossible colors. Orange poppies. Purple lupine. They turned a place that had once been a monument to loss into a quiet hymn ofhope.
Aurora dashed ahead, dark curls bouncing, her tiny legs chasing sunbeams and lizards with the unwavering fearlessness of a three-year-old who had never known a world without security or safety.
“Daddy, why are we bringing flowers to the road?” she asked, turning back to us with those enormous brown eyes that were pure Wendy.
“To say goodbye to some important people,” I said, shifting Beck as he stirred against my chest. “People who helped Mommy and Daddy find each other, even though they never meant to.”
Beside me, Wendy carried the bouquet in her hands. White roses and baby’s breath, just as she had the first time she’d visited the crash site. Though her face was soft now, serene. The haunted edges had retreated, long gone. Five years of therapy, of choosing light over some sick ritualized sorrow, had freed her from the need to turn her pain into a shrine.
We had debated whether to bring the children. Whether to share this place with them. But we had decided that teaching them where we began, where we chose to heal, was more important than hiding the truth. Beck and Delaney were a part of our story, part of the foundation our family rested on, even if our children wouldn’t truly understand that weight until much later.
“This is where you met?” Aurora asked, peering over the guardrail with that fearless curiosity that made my heart stop at least three times a day.
“This is where we met,” Wendy said, her voice steady. “A very sad thing happened here… but it led to something beautiful.”
I thought of the shrine we’d once built in our shared madness. Painted stones, flowers, a monument to pain, loneliness, and grief that had nearly consumed us. Now, only wildflowers swayed in the breeze; the desert had claimed the place back with quiet grace.
Dr. Probst and Lauren, our therapists, would have been proud. We’d learned the difference between honoring memory and living trapped horrifically inside of it. We had learned how to carry Beck and Delaney with us without building alters to our guilt, to our shame. Healing, we had discovered, was not about decorating in the darkness. It was about walking right through it, and then stepping into the sunlight.
Beck gurgled softly, content in his own little baby dream world. He would grow up knowing the story of his name, the courage it honored, but he would not grow up under its shadow. That was the gift we had promised both our children from the moment they were born: to give them love without the weight of ghosts.
Perhaps that was why we’d named Aurora, well, Aurora. Her name meant dawn. New hope.
“Can we leave the flowers now?” she asked, tugging on my pant leg, already fidgeting.
“Yes, sweetheart,” Wendy said, kneeling to place the bouquet against the guardrail. No shrine this time. Just a quiet thank you to the universe for allowing us to move on from this tragedy and find purpose in our lives.
