The Fifteenth Year

Epilogue: Part 13

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 (continued)

Dear Friend,

I guess now I can tell you where we all ended up. Let's start with my family. My parents are doing well - still living in my childhood home in Lakota, and my dad is getting closer to retirement. They're healthy and they are eagerly having us home for the holidays. They want to hold their grandson.

Brendan and Charlotte broke up sometime during my sophomore year in high school. But no worries, Charlotte moved on with her life I hear and Brendan is now married to his long-time girlfriend Whitney.

Jeremy is twenty-one now, hopefully staying out of too much trouble. But he's always been into mischief. We're all hoping he meets a nice girl and settles down. He actually had Miss Burgess as his teacher his freshman year of high school.

Greg and Monique Conners are in good health, living next to my parents. Such a constant, they're exactly the same, which I love. 

Tracy and Cal moved to Portland, Oregon for Cal's job, but they love it there. They're talking about starting a family.

Miss Burgess is still teaching, according to Jeremy. She took a leave for a while to have a child, but is back and changing lives, I'm sure.

I heard Lydia went to Purdue when she graduated from Lakota High. Business school. If that's true, I'm proud of her. I hope she's doing well, that she's moved on from the pain of her parents and trivial matters of high school. I hope she's happy.

Harriet is a congresswoman in Tennessee. She stayed local to be with the rest of her family. Her mom passed away some years ago. I sent her flowers when she wrote me the news. She's doing well.

Tessa went to community college in Lakota. She's still a secretary at that awesome law firm. She's still rooming in a downtown apartment with her roommate and has started dating this guy named Dan a few months ago. She says it's getting serious and she wants me to meet him over Christmas. She stopped trying to fix up her mom in high school as you know, and her mom was right. It all worked out for the best after all.

Tessa's mom, Alice, and Renee's dad, Scott, began dating our junior year of high school. We found the whole thing hilarious, but it made total sense. We have no idea why we didn't think of it ourselves. They tied the knot shortly after our high school graduation. They're still together. Tessa and Renee don't find it weird that they're stepsisters. They've been like sisters for years anyway. The real winner in this whole scenario I think is Alice. She went from being left jaded by a guy that set her on a path of being a single mom to Tessa - her only immediate family. Now she's married, with Tessa, Renee, and four boys to parent and fill her living room every major holiday. Instant family.

Renee went to UConn after high school to major in art. Because she, Cloe, and I weren't too far from each other geographically during our college years, we'd all drive half-way and meet each other on occasion and hang out. We even had a short road trip to Cape Cod my junior year of college. She fell in love with Connecticut and decided to live there permanently after graduation, but she travels all over the country when her business calls her to. She's a landscape photographer for a magazine and she absolutely loves it. She loves photography and all the places she gets to see, and how the flighty job matches her flighty and fearless personality. One of the other photographers for that magazine that specializes in sculptures and artifacts began going on these bookings with her and they hit it off back in 2013. He's a few years older than us. They began dating and last year they took the next step and she moved in with her hipster boyfriend (totally a Seth Cohen type), Chet Streeter. Now they're engaged. I just got their wedding invitation in the mail today in fact.

Chloe went to Brown after high school. Her brains got her to an Ivy League like she hoped and she started off majoring in medical science. She thought she wanted to do cell research. But the pressure and time took the love for it out of her and after one semester, she switched her major to English Lit. Her last year in college, she got a job on the side that allows her to write and sell screenplays in Boston - all rom-coms; her other love. She fell in love with one of her editors (Samuel) and they got married before she technically even finished college. When we told her it was fast, her romantic heart proclaimed that when you know, you know. And now today, our dear precious Chloe Fleacorn (well, Chloe Ames now), is a mom. Little Aiden was born last November. He'll be turning one very soon.

And as for me?

TO BE CONTINUED