How to Love ✔️

epilogue

E D E N

Christmas morning began with a knock on the door. I groaned, twisting beneath my blanket before pulling myself out of bed and zombie-ing over to the front door. I could hear Santana snoring softly in her room. Must be nice.

Peeking through the tiny hole, I saw two men standing in the hallway, looking scuffed up with rosey cheeks and wind-blown hair. Deciding to fully embrace my fleece snowman pyjamas and messy bed head, I opened the door.

"Eden Flores?" one of the men asked.

"That's me."

He held out a slip of paper and read off it slowly. "We have a, uh, delivery for you. Can we bring it in now?"

"Delivery? I didn't order anything."

The man shrugged, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here. To be fair, it was Christmas morning. And my breath was probably deadly.

"We got some stuff for you in the truck outside. Mind if we bring it in now?" I nodded, knowing he'd bring it inside regardless of my answer. "Great. You may wanna clear some space... It's a pretty big delivery."

I shut the door and blinked a few times. A package? Delivered on Christmas morning? I pushed the confusion aside and began clearing out the hallway, moving around furniture to make space for whatever I might have ordered in the middle of the night when I was probably drunk.

When the space was relatively empty, there was another knock. I opened the door and stood off to the side as the two men carried in four gigantic boxes, each heavier than the last. They were grunting and sweating. Soon, my entire living room was filled with cardboard.

The men left in a hurry, probably eager to get back home to their families. I eyed the boxes suspiciously then grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen. Whatever was inside these boxes, I hoped it wasn't more pink furniture Santana ordered. I'll kill her, I thought.

I started with the smallest box, digging the scissors into the corner and cutting along the edge of the cardboard. It fell apart easily. Then, I gasped. Inside was the furniture Truman had painted—the sky pieces he had made for Katie.

I ran my hand along the smooth wood, felt the strokes of the clouds. I could still see his smile that day in the warehouse, how proud he was to be creating something so special for her.

With my heart in my throat, I tore through the other three boxes until my living room was replaced by the sky. I wanted to cry. I wanted to sink into the carpet and curl into a ball. He had done this for me. This last gift—this final piece of Katie for me to keep forever.

I pushed the furniture along the walls, not caring that it made no sense to have a dresser in the living room and a bed randomly propped against a wall. I positioned all the furniture perfectly until the walls seemed to vanish and I was standing beneath a summer sky.

I laid on the floor and smiled, surrounded by clouds and a hundred shades of blue. I could picture Katie high above, nestled on a cloud with the softest pinch of cotton between her fingers. Truman was somewhere far below, where gravity still held him firmly to the ground. His head was tilted upwards and he was smiling, beaming, like a lighthouse that would always find her.

We were all apart, but something still tied us to one another. The memories, both good and bad, kept us in each other's lives no matter how much distance had opened up between us.

I smiled up at the sky Truman had given me. Wherever he was—wherever she was— I hoped they were smiling, too.

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the end. 🖤