How a Dying Woman Rewrote Her Epilogue

He kept his gaze fixed on her. “But cheating? I never have, and I never will."

Elodie stayed silent, just waiting to see what he'd say next.

Despite the headache still throbbing behind his eyes, Jarrod took her hand and placed it over his heart. "I've never let anyone else in here. Not before, not now. Elodie, I've spent nearly a decade—eight, nine years—on you alone.”

He sounded like a man with nothing left to lose, as if illness had stripped away all hesitation and left only the raw, honest truth.

"That 'couple's profile picture' you were upset about-do you really not remember it at all?" His voice carried a note of helplessness. "You drew it yourself. Don't you recognize your own work?"

Elodie's brow unfurrowed, but the memory just wouldn't come.

Jarrod pulled open the drawer by his bedside and took out a hand-drawn picture, neatly framed.

On the letter-sized paper was the full sketch of Jarrod's profile image, and in the bottom right corner, in delicate handwriting, was her signature: Elodie.

It was unmistakably her handwriting.

Looking at it now, memories began to stir, distant and blurred but undeniable.

Back then, she loved stargazing with her telescope, and sometimes she'd sketch whatever inspired her-astronomy, the night sky, little fragments of her imagination. Most of the time, she forgot about them afterward; she'd drawn so many.

tucked away in the garden with your sketchbook. I could tell you had no patience for those kinds of social gatherings. It was the third time

smiled wryly

with Elodie's grandfather that their grandchildren weren't far apart in age-maybe there was a bit of fate

much

so sweet and composed,

That one stung.

was just over twenty

was whisked

to just rip out the

the staff tidied it away in the sitting room, and that's where it stayed, resurfacing every

reminding him

careless words: too old.

more things happened between them after

remember-or maybe she'd forgotten-that she'd helped

then, in

started piecing it together. That night, she'd been painfully aware she didn't belong-not

e'

tangled web, nor with the Thornes, whose glory was fading. The Harcourts had

to them was

overheard Jarrod's grandfather's "matchmaking"