I look back to see my mother standing there with his gun in her hand. “I gave you everything,” she says, walking to him, and he groans, holding his shoulder. “Everything. I stood by you when I caught you with my best friend on our wedding day.” She points the gun at him. “When you chased the staff around. When I had to spend my birthday alone because you were with one of your whores!” she screams, and you see that she is broken. “I did everything for you.” She sobs. “Everything.” I get up now and walk over to my mother who stands over my father, and her hands are shaking. “Everything!” she yells, and I call her name.

“Mom,” I say, and she turns her face to look at me.

“He ruined everything,” she says.

“I know he did, Mom,” I say, “but this is not going to help anyone. Give me the gun. Let him stand there in the courtroom and let everyone know what he did. Just give me the gun,” I tell her, holding out my hand. “Just give me the gun.”

Her hands shake as she holds the gun, and a sob rips through her. “I’m so sorry,” she says, handing me the gun. The front door swings open, and I hear boots running down the hallway.

“Beau!” I hear Jacob scream my name.

“In here,” Savannah says, her own sob coming out of her. “We’re in here.”

The door swings open, and Jacob runs in and sees my father on the floor. “Shit,” he says.

“I shot him,” my mother says. “I shot him.”

It takes an hour for them to take my father out on a stretcher, and my mother is sitting down on the couch, her composure is just like it always is. She sits there with her feet crossed at her ankles and her hands on her knees. “Is she going to be arrested?” I ask Jacob.

“Not unless your father presses charges,” Jacob says. “Right now, he’s not saying anything.”

“How are you doing?” Savannah says, coming over to me and hugging me around the waist.

“I’m doing okay, baby,” I say, kissing her head.

She looks up, and the clouds suddenly start to roll in. “Looks like a storm is coming.”

I look up and see the black clouds start to roll in just as fast as the white clouds chase it away. “Looks like the storm passed us,” I say, kissing her. “And we are still standing.”

Epilogue One

Savannah

One year later

“This is silly,” I say, looking around the room at Olivia and Kallie. “We are already married.”

“But this time,” Kallie says, coming to me, “you got to pick your own wedding dress.”