Epilogue

THE SUN IS SETTING in a blaze of fall glory outside the windows of our home. It used to be Joshua's home, but over the last year it has become mine, ours.

I can't believe it's been a year. I can't believe what I've learned in that year with him. How happy we've been together. Not that every moment has been easy. But it's all been beautiful, even the hard parts.

I am a different person now, yet essentially the same, which is what Joshua was trying to tell me from the start, what Lydia reminds me of all the time, what Enzo told me in Rome: that who I am is good enough.

“Valentine,” Joshua calls from the bathroom, “you almost ready to go?”

“Almost.”

“Roy called. He and Carrie are meeting us there a few minutes early.”

“Okay, good.”

So nice to have friends in my life. Unbelievable still, sometimes. Carrie and Roy are good people; supportive, kind. Normal people. They've heard my story, the one I will tell in front of two hundred people tonight. And they're still my friends.

I pull my gaze from the window back to the mirror over the dresser. I look very much the same as I always have. Just happier. And my eyes are alive with excitement, with nerves.

I pick up the lovely, square-cut emerald Joshua gave me when I came home from Rome from a shallow bowl on the dresser, struggle to get the long, gold chain hooked. Joshua comes up behind me, takes the necklace from my fumbling fingers, and fastens the clasp, turns me around in his arms. I can smell the soap on him; his hair is still damp from the shower. I want to take him to bed right now. I always want him, but I love it when he's clean like this, with a fresh shave, making his face look innocent, sweet, except for that small scar, the wicked gleam in his hazel eyes.

“Do I look alright?” I ask him.

“Beautiful as always, baby.”

“But am I… presentable?”

“Don't worry so much. You'll be fine. You'll be wonderful.” He strokes my cheek with one fingertip, making me shiver. He always has that effect on me. No matter what else is on my mind, a lovely, momentary distraction.

“I've never spoken in front of a group before. And this is so important.”

“I know it is. But you'll be fine because it's so important to you.”

“This” is the first big fundraiser for my foundation, Lost Girls. We plan to open by next summer. A halfway house, a job training program. I've already made connections with two of the local drug treatment programs, been shameless in hitting up people I know in the film industry for donations, using my old connections, as odd as that seems. But it's been a way for me to turn the shit that was my old life into something positive. I even asked Deirdre. The witch surprised me by sending a check for twenty thousand dollars.

Joshua's invited everyone he knows, people he works with, people I've come to know. He's proud of me. I'm proud of me.

I lean into Joshua, breathe him in, feel the solid strength of his body beneath my cheek.

“I couldn't do this without you,” I tell him.

“Sure you could. You've always had the strength, Valentine. You just had to learn to see it.”

“I really want to make a difference.”

“You will. You're the right person to do this, after what you've been through. You're a survivor. That's part of your gift to them.”

“I feel like I'm finally doing something worthwhile with my life. I have purpose. And I have you.”

He squeezes my hand, warming me up inside. “Yeah, you do. You always have me. Always.”

He lifts my hand to his lips, kisses the back of my fingers, turns my hand over to kiss my palm, making me shiver.

He's watching me in that way he has that turns my entire body to liquid. His beautiful eyes are gleaming metallic in the amber light: malachite, gold, silver. He leans in, my hand still in his.

He says, his voice low, steady, “Marry me, Valentine.”

I am too stunned to speak. No one has ever said these words to me. I would never have expected them. Not from anyone else. But from Joshua, they sound exactly right. They sound perfect. My pulse is racing, my body lit with a pure, clean pleasure.

My throat is so tight with emotion, it's hard to speak. “I love you, Joshua. So much.”

“You know how much I love you, baby. Say yes.”

“Yes!”

We smile at each other, hugely, foolishly, and it is as though time has stopped and nothing else exists but the two of us in this moment. Together. The rest of the world, my worries about the evening ahead, fades away as he pulls me to him and kisses my smiling mouth. Sweet, lovely kisses. I can never get enough.

My world is perfect, somehow, despite my imperfections. That's what he's been teaching me. That love itself is perfect if we allow it to just be, despite how human we are, how flawed. That love can still flourish. And it does.