Chasing the New Girl - (Complete)

Chapter 36 - Epilogue

Blaze was able to get his grades up high enough his senior year of high school to get into a local community college for his first two years of getting his Criminal Justice degree while Jolie did two years of hybrid learning at Harvard, traveling there once or twice a month while still living in Illinois with Blaze, moving into his apartment with him.

Blaze worked hard to get good enough grades at the community college that he was able to transfer to the University of Massachusetts his junior year. That way Jolie could go to classes at Harvard Law in person full time for her last two years of law school. They got an off-campus apartment together in between Harvard and the University of Massachusetts so it was only a twenty minute commute for each of them.

Blaze's brother Cole moved to Boston with them and he was excited about starting his Freshman year of high school in a big city, but kind of nervous too. Jolie helped him through it because she had been through a move in high school too so she understood what he was going through.

Over the next two years, Blaze finished out his four year Criminal Justice bachelor's degree to become a detective and Jolie finished her Law Degree at Harvard, graduating in the top 1% of her class. She got job offers from some top law firms, including her Dad's law firm that was one of the most prestigious and highest paying in New York City. That was a huge honor, but she couldn't imagine working with her Dad and his family had made it very clear that they didn't approve of Blaze, with her grandparents even threatening to cut her out of their will if she married him.

They had always tried to control everyone around them with their money, but that wasn't going to work with her. There was nothing that could stop her from marrying Blaze. She loved him so much, she couldn't even imagine marrying anyone else.

With college now finished, Blaze and Jolie were contemplating whether they wanted her to accept a job at a firm in New York City or move back to Illinois and have her open her own law firm in Riverview instead. She would make a lot more money in New York, but if they settled down in Riverview, they would be close to family. He could be a detective in either place so he left the final decision to her.  He did mention that it would be kind of nice to join the police force back home with the officers that were the reason he became a detective in the first place.

It was a really hard choice, but in the end she decided they should settle down back home in Riverview. That place felt more like home to her than anywhere else and it felt like that's where she belonged. She opened her own law firm there and Blaze took a job as a local detective, helping out in Peoria too from time to time, which was a bigger city an hour away.

It was hard for Cole to adjust to going back to a small town to finish out high school after being in a big city for his Freshman and Sophomore years. After renting an apartment in Riverview for a year while they got her new law firm up and running, they found the perfect house for sale in the housing development close to her Mom's. She begged Blaze and it didn't take much convincing for him to agree they should buy it. They both thought it was the perfect house for them to raise a family in.

On her 23rd birthday, Blaze surprised her by proposing in front of all their friends and family at a cookout they were having next to a lake. Of course she said yes and they were married six months later in the little church where her Mom's parents had gotten married. She even wore her grandma's beautiful vintage lace dress.

When they were at the hospital giving birth to their first child, Blaze's Dad showed up unexpectedly, surprising all of them. He was in tears and told them that losing his sons finally gave him the motivation he needed to get clean and sober and he apologized for everything as he sobbed and told them how much he loved them.

Blaze and Cole hesitated before they both finally walked over and gave him a hug. It was hard to trust him after everything he had put them through over the years, but ultimately they both decided to give him a second chance to be their Dad and for the first time in his life, he didn't disappoint them. He even started coming to watch Cole's soccer games and cheered him on without making any comments about how it wasn't a real sport. 

They never did reunite with their Mom that took off when they were little. Jolie never reconciled with her Dad either, only seeing him once a year around Christmas. He had a new family now with his new wife and it irritated her so much to see how involved he was in the lives of his step-kids and the new baby him and his wife had. Why couldn't he have been that kind of Dad with her?

Luckily Blaze was a much better Dad than her Dad or his Dad ever were. They ended up having three kids, two boys they named Tanner and Jonah and then their last was a baby girl they named Elora. Even though they both came from broken homes, they made a conscious decision to break the cycle and work through their issues and to always fight for their relationship.

They stuck to that promise and had a long, happy life together. It wasn't perfect. There were fights and bumps in the road at times, but at the end of the day, they chose love and never once did she regret her decision to choose Blaze.