epilogue: tessa

I woke up in Malibu, in the back of a renovated van, next to my sleeping wife. In all of my wildest dreams, I never imagined myself here.

Abby slept peacefully beside me, blissfully unaware of my staring at her gentle figure under the white duvet. We'd taken our honeymoon late, as most people seemed to be doing nowadays, and were enjoying the cooler, February air on the beach. As cool as sixty degrees could get, anyway.

October felt like a lifetime away, but I replayed our wedding in my head like it was last week. We'd been married now for five months, and I still managed to fall in love with her and learn more about her everyday.

I knew how foolish we sounded getting married at twenty three, but with Abby's mom getting sick, we'd rushed our plans a little to let her be apart of our wedding. We didn't know how long we had with her, so we'd held off on our honeymoon for a few months until Abby felt safe leaving her for a week. Her dad was a great bedside nurse, but Abby always worried