Page 328 of When a Soul Cries

Halo had no idea what was happening, but when she saw everybody else making noise, she started clapping her little hands and squealing right along with them.

I laughed against my husband's mouth.

My husband.

That thought alone nearly made me cry again.

Roman pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against mine. His eyes were still wet, his smile softer than I'd ever seen it.

For a few seconds, the cheering around us faded.

It was just him.

Me.

The last traces of sunset disappearing behind the mountains.

Candlelight flickering around us.

His thumb brushed gently across my cheek.

“Mrs. Devereaux.”

My eyes closed.

Mrs. Devereaux.

For years, I'd thought surviving meant making it through one more day without falling apart.

Then I'd thought starting over meant getting far enough away from Pinehaven that the past couldn't reach me. Later, it meant keeping a roof over Halo's head, food in her stomach and enough strength in my body to wake up and do it all over again.

I had spent so much of my life believing safety meant never needing anybody.

But standing beneath those flowers with Roman's arms around me, I understood something I hadn't before.

Starting over wasn't about erasing what came before.

Nothing could erase it.

It was about refusing to let it decide what came next.

I turned my head and looked at Halo, still perched happily in Sugga's arms. Sugga was kissing her cheek while wiping tears from her own face. Kai stood beside them, shaking his head and smiling despite all the shit he'd talked. Zari caught my eye from a few feet away, and the look on her face carried years of history between us—Pinehaven, that bus station, pregnancy tests, sleepless nights, fear, laughter, tears and everything we'd survived together.

Then I looked back at Roman.

My husband.

These weren't people standing around me because they felt sorry for me.

They weren't here because I owed them anything.

They were here because somewhere along the way, through all the mess and pain and unexpected turns, we had become a family.

And for the first time in a long time, my mind wasn't running backward through everything I'd survived or racing ahead trying to prepare for whatever might go wrong next.

I was simply there.

Standing underneath a darkening Georgia sky with my husband's hand wrapped around mine, my daughter surrounded by people who loved her, and the sound of my family's laughter filling the night around us.