Okay...fidgets nervously in seat here it is...the chapter you have all been waiting for. The finale, the epilogue...the end to my story. I'm all weepy sniffle it is so hard to write the ending to a story you have been working on for years. But enough about me...to all my readers out there, you guys have been so incredibly awesome over the past year or so, sticking with me through LONG periods of time with no updates...thank you all so so much for reading and although the ending was completely opposite from what I had intended, I think that it came out perfect. So please, read and review...and tell me what you think about the entirety of the story...((and yes, there will be some lose ends because I am thinking of a spinoff that might happen, but not for a while)) anyhoo, thank you all again and I'll see you at the end..I'll be the one crying.

Chapter Fifty Eight: Adrian's Epilogue

So here I sit...documenting the last year or so of my life at the same coffee house that all of this began. It is just as cold and just as menacing...it has been eight months, three weeks and two days since...well, since the day I don't like to talk about. It's hard, you know? To talk about something like that...it just doesn't happen every day. I feel like the same person inside...I feel like I'm the same Adrian Pickerdy that sat in this very spot a year prior, sipping a mocha latte with his best friend. Ah, oh how the times have changed. In one single year and some change...my life has come crashing down and picked back up again.

There is so much to say and so little time to say it in, I am already running late...I just...I feel like something meaningful and heartfelt should be said here, like I have learned so much and that I have gained insight about love and devotion. That I have discovered parts of myself that I would have never known should I have never met Dmitri Devereux, but although that is all completely true, to say something so cliché...is that really how it should all play out? Like one gigantic cliché?

I suppose the best thing to say now, eight months, three weeks and two days later is that I am still living. Still walking and still breathing. And although Tyler, my friend since I was little, was never convicted of the gruesome crimes against Dmitri and myself, it is safe to say that he got his just rewards in his own way. He and I have spoken about what happened on our own terms and although he gave no real explanation or answers for what he did, somehow, the half answers he gave seemed to make perfect sense coming from someone as layered as he is. He and I see each other on a regular basis...I feel like, although I will never forgive what he did to us, he opened up this world that I never thought that I would see. I never thought I would be in this place in my life, it just didn't seem possible. Not for me, at least. It is hard to remember back to a year ago when Francois and I sat, talking about failure...I can honestly tell you I remember very little about that night, such things seem to escape me from time to time...however, I am not completely at a loss of memory...

I remember exactly how he smelt...when he ran into me. I remember the feel of his clothes and the gentle caress of his fingers against my flesh as he slid my glasses on to my face. I remember the chill sound of his voice and the way he send shivers down my spine when he spoke. All of that is so crystal clear that I seem to live it all the time, over and over again in my head. Maybe that is why I came back to this place tonight...because I want to relive the moment...

You cannot relive moments, I've found, they are never as exciting as they were when they actually happened. But why would one want to relive memories? I have always been one to live in my past and although Dmitri has told me time and again that that is a big weakness of mine, I just can't help it. I can't help thinking back to when things were so simple. When it was all kisses and lovemaking. Before the...you know. Nothing never comes easy in this life and you are only offered so many miracles. And sometimes all you have is memories and such. And although forgiveness is so hard to give...it just has to be done to move on sometimes.

It took me months to even considering forgiving Xander Bellamont for the things he did to me. I learned about all he did. I learned that he butchered my car, I learned that he had secretly plotted with Tyler to rape me and I had learned that he had had an affair with Dmitri right before the stabbing, that the affair was what actually provoked the stabbing and I have to honestly say that it was a world easier to forgive Tyler then it was Xander. Tyler had reason and purpose for the things he did and, at the time, I didn't think Xander was deep enough to have such purpose. But he did it for the same reasons Tyler did it. Neverending, undying love for someone you just can't have. Love makes people do horrible and crazy things. I can understand where they both were coming from...because if it was me in their positions, I would have done the same thing to be with Dmitri.

I find it so funny that I even feel that strongly...because I thought after Mary, there would be no one else for me...it is so hard to love once you've lost, but sitting at this coffee house a year ago, I knew something was going to change in my life. I knew, when he was on top of me, that he was going to be the person I live for. Some eighteen year old street rat from Paris, France...I wanted him so badly in my world of glitz and glamour...what am I saying? I'm sorry, this is just me rambling away...

Francois and I rarely talk anymore...don't get me wrong, I love the man to death, but I feel like things are just too awkward now. He has remarried, you know. To his ex-wife Amanda...I was invited to the wedding but did not attend. I just couldn't. He wouldn't want me there and, although I would have loved to have been there to offer my undying support in everything he does, it was better that I made myself scarce. Our paths will meet again someday, and when they do, I hope that we are both at the place in our lives where we can shake hands and be like "I'm happy for you." Because right now, neither one of us can be happy for the other. And that is a toxic combination. I want nothing more then to remain his best friend, even if it takes years for the awkwardness to go away. I will always love him and he will always love me, but it all goes back to the whole "wanting something you cant have" which fueled Xander and Tyler's devious plots...and Francois and I never EVER want to become that desperate or crazy for love. On the upside, he gets to see his daughter everyday now...and "Zeke" has long since packed his bags and shipped himself back to whatever New England town he was spurned from. Francois, Amanda and Sheridan are now all living happily in Milan, Italy...I travel there all the time, but have never once ran into my best friend in the past eight months...

When you think about it in the literal sense, it seems that I have lost so much more then I've gained. Francois, my best friend in the entire world for years...gone from my life. My home, abandoned...family, abandoned to live life in Paris, France. I just can't leave it...I feel like if I leave this place then all the memories will stay and I will be without a time before the...you know. It is hard to imagine what all of this feels like. It almost feels like a fabulous dream mixed with the most frightening nightmare. Sometimes, I feel like I am absolute lost, drowning in tears and overwhelming dread that all of this had been one big mistake...

I cry myself to sleep a lot...very muffled cries, hoping and praying that this whole year hadn't been a mistake. Or even worse, that it hadn't been real. That I was going to wake up one morning back in England, alone and still stuck on the memories of Mary...drowning in liquor and depression. That it enough to make even the strongest men cry and I am not at all a strong man. In fact, I am probably the weakest I know. Crying over something that happened months ago. But then...but then I look in the bed beside me and see what God has blessed me with in the place of all that I have lost. And the tears stop falling, and the nightmare just seem to vanish...because he's there. And he survived exactly what I survived...

Dmitri told me once, months after we were released from the hospital...months after I moved in with him and months after his play was made into a film...he told me that he prayed for me, while he was in the hospital. He recited to me every single word of that prayer, not leaving anything to the imagination, and for some reason, I was able to recite it with him. It was as if that prayer was never heard by God, but it was just a secret thing, between the two of us. Dmitri doesn't believe that God helped him come out of his slumber...that would be so completely unlike him. Instead, he told me that he didn't deserve to sleep if I was going to be sitting up night after night crying over him. I still do that.

But now, in the middle of the night, when I feel like the negative memories are too strong to fight and I feel the tears overwhelming me and the panic begins to kick in...he is right there, to grab me and pull me close...to kiss my tears away and to speak to me so soothingly in French, and although I can't understand a word he says, I know he is telling me that things are going to be alright...and I believe him, because he is my lover...and he would never hurt me.

I know how stupid you must all think I am, saying that Dmitri Devereux would never hurt me after he has already done so time and time again, but sometime that hurt is just...well, its worth it to be with the one person you love. For eight months, three weeks and two days, he has never let go of my hand, nor has he stopped telling me how much he loves me. And although that can't make up for his infidelities and lies, it can somehow make them seem less...hurtful. Does that make any sense at all? Probably not, again...I'm just rambling. Once one starts to ramble, it is best for one to stop talking.

Here we sit, Dmitri and I...hand in hand, looking at each other like no one else in this mortal world exists...and that is because they don't. We are on an amazing journey and it is only just beginning...and as I look into those turquoise eyes, framed with dark lashes, I see my future...He is my future, he is my everything. And we will never stop telling each other that. We left it all behind...friends, nightmares, jobs, naivety...all left behind to continue on as one. And as we leave this place, to trudge on in this difficult environment we call life, he looks over at me and as if it was scripted, he says...

"Vous avez de beaux yeux..." Ah yes...the only bit of French I know, and it still makes me feel exactly the same as the first time I heard it...and it always will.

Fin

Thank you all so very much for sticking with me through fifty seven whole chapters...I hope you all enjoyed my story and again, thank you all for reading. Its time for me to sign off...Thank you.