“Are you serious?” Her mouth is hanging open, and it actually makes me chuckle. I didn’t plan this, but it makes total sense.

“Dead serious. It’s what Hazel wanted.”

Glancing over at Savannah, I see her smiling gently at me through the window, and I can’t stand the distance between us so I give Tia a quick hug, another hundred thank you-s, and I close the space until she’s in my arms.

I don’t deserve this, I keep repeating in my mind.

Epilogue

It takes us two more months before we decide to move out of Ruby’s house and into Murph’s. Maybe it was just nerves about moving so quickly to living together, and I offered numerous times to get my own place, but he wouldn’t hear it. In his own words: we don’t follow the rules. Which makes sense.

Murph and I were never meant to meet. I was never supposed to survive that first crash, but something pulled me out of the water and dropped me off on this island, pushed me into that house, into his arms.

He wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell he was nervous about any remaining threat from Hugo’s gang. Rafe was over all the time, talking to him in secret corners, on the phone with him from out-of-town trips, and I never asked, because I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t face the idea that he could still haunt me from the grave.

It was a sickness called denial, and it wasn’t the only thing I was afflicted with. As things started to settle down and I watched him relax when we were out of the house, I was able to accept the truth of our situation.

I sleep like the dead, can’t bare the smell of Pinesol that Ruby uses to mop the floors, and I’m hungrier for sex than I had ever been.

I suspect that it was right after the crash. I didn’t take my pill for almost a week straight, and I just assumed it couldn’t happen that fast. Now that we’re packing up our few belongings to take on the daunting task of navigating life alone as a new couple, I somehow have to break the news to him that he’s taking on more than just me.

The thought alone makes me want to barf, even more than the Pinesol.

He throws his sweatshirt into a small bankers box and turns to me with a dashing smile. He’s started trimming up his beard, still keeping it full, but cleaning up the edges. It makes him even sexier, and most days I can’t keep my mouth off of his.