Chapter 5 - The Aftermath
We moved out of the small house three weeks later.
The town had become too small, too full of memories. We sold the property and used the proceeds to start over in a place where nobody knew our names, and more importantly, nobody knew what I used to do.
Lily was thriving. She’d gone back to university, her eyes bright, her spirit slowly knitting itself back together. She didn't talk about Richard anymore. That chapter of her life had been sealed, shredded, and incinerated.
I was sitting on the porch of our new home, a small cabin in the mountains, watching the sunset. My burner phone was in the fireplace, a blackened hunk of plastic and silicon. I had no more contacts, no more Code Blacks. I was just a father.
"Dad?" Lily stepped onto the porch, a tray of tea in her hands.
"Yeah, honey?"
"Do you ever think about it? The past?"
I took the tea and looked out over the valley. "Sometimes. But the past is a ghost, Lily. It only has power if you invite it in. I’m not inviting it in anymore."
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"I'm glad," she said, sitting beside me. "I don't need the man you used to be. I just need you."
I squeezed her hand. It was a simple life—no white tents, no expensive decorations, no lies. Just the sound of the wind through the pines and the quiet comfort of a future that belonged to us.
