Epilogue :: Pam
I wasn’t a waitress anymore.
In fact, it was almost funny, going through anything that told me I was, at one point.
A bunch of boxes full of almost ten years surrounded me, and I felt exhilarated and exhausted and young and old all at the same time.
Most things would be pitched, and the things I held on to were carefully selected and thoroughly reviewed.
Jim came over to help me load things into my car. He was amazed at all the stuff I had accumulated, but I just smiled and said it was because of my tendency to want to feel nostalgic.
“Kind of like your yearbook,” I teased him, but a little serious. “Only ten or fifteen boxes worth.”
“Well, I have to say, I’m impressed at how much you compacted this,” he said, nodding towards my “get rid of” pile. “But, you know I’m a little interested in the treasures you’re throwing away.”
I sighed, but happily. I was glad I had gotten rid of the “Roy” stuff a long time ago. The chapter of my life Jim would be searching through was predominantly high school, minus-Roy. I was a little shocked at the fact there was so much there, if only because being with Roy seemed to define who I was for almost eleven years.
We spent an hour or two laughing at notes I had passed to my friends, most of them written in codes that I would then decipher.
At first I thought it was a little weird, sorting through my past together, going back over things that I did and said even before I had a clue that a guy named Jim would even be in my life. Let alone be my fiance.
But, aside from the weirdness, I realized that he was, no matter which way you looked at it, an enormous part of my past. It was more recent than macaroni necklaces and albums of goofy photos taken on disposable cameras, but it was more important than anything.
Because the recent past, alone, had helped me become me. Helped me learn, accept my flaws. Assisted me in finally coming to a realization, to take a stand, to know. Even though knowing wasn’t really the problem.
The problem was always being.
We fit together, and I denied that for a long time.
But as I settled back into his arms, breathing deeply and laughing at a first-grade journal entry along with him, I was more sure than ever.
The ring on my finger, with Roy, was a blur of before.
The ring on my finger, with Jim, encompassed everything I wanted to be, my hopes, my desires, my dreams.
I used to think that getting married meant giving up all those things.
And while I realized that almost every aspect of my life was set to change with something as simple as “I do,” I also knew that it was getting straight back to our roots.
Straight back to just being.
Jim found a folded piece of paper in the back of a book. He asked me if he could look. I shrugged and said I didn’t have anything to hide, not anymore.
He cleared his throat and read:
I swear, if Roy doesn’t start leaving good tips when we go out, I will dump him. This is serious! I’m folding this up because I’m hoping it won’t come true. But I’m keeping it because I kind of think it will.
I promised myself: no bad tippers!!!!!!!
“No bad tippers, huh?” he whispered into my hair.
“I was seventeen,” I said wistfully.
Certain, I said the one remaining thing. The thing I was still, even after a few years, getting used to being. The thing that I was learning to not be so surprised at.
“I was right.”
I kissed Jim and my doubts slipped away, amongst a sea of what I used to be, what I was in that moment, and all that I looked forward to, eventually.
Everything’s okay here.
Author's Chapter Notes:
this is the end.. thank you to all who have read and I can only hope that this has been a fun journey reading as it was a joy to write.
katoepotatoe is the author of 1 other stories.
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