Goodbye, My Love
By Misha
Disclaimer- Not mine. I’m just borrowing them for a little while and will return them when I am done.
Author’s Notes- This is my response to the “last letter to your loved one” challenge that is going around Tumblr. I’m struggling with the potential endings for Endless Summer and the fact that my MC is likely going to have to sacrifice herself and this let me work out some of those feelings.
Pairing- Jake/MC
Rating- PG
Summary- After choosing to sacrifice herself to save the world, Stephanie writes a letter to Jake.
Words- 689
Dear Jake,
When you read this, my choice will have already been made and I am gone. There is so much to explain, but I can’t find the words. Just know that everything I am, everything I have been has been leading to this. To loving you and to saying goodbye.
I had to make a choice, Jake.
For our friends, for the world, and I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to choose us. I wanted to live in our little house on the cliff and share these moments with the people we love and live the life we’ve built here on La Huerta, but it would mean sacrificing the rest of the world and I can’t do that.
I can’t choose myself over everyone else, no matter how much I love you. That was the hardest part, because I’ll always choose you, but I can’t choose us. Not this time.
But I’m selfish enough to make you mourn me. I could have made it so none of this happened, but I couldn’t do that either. Because it did happen and we are all so much better for it, I truly believe that and I hope you agree.
I love you, Jake McKenzie, with all of my heart and soul. Everything I am was created to love you, but that doesn’t mean we were guaranteed a happily ever after. It’s something I’ve come to realize. Not every story has a happy ending, I know that now and I think that in the end, that is what separates me from the Endless. Because I can accept that and she couldn’t.
She kept fighting for the happy ending, no matter she had to rest time, and she saw only the small picture and I… I see it all. As much as I want us to be happy, I can’t make that choice and I know you couldn’t either.
You are a good man, Jake, better than you think you are, and I know that this is the choice you would make in my shoes. No matter how hard you argue that you put yourself first, we both know the truth, and that is why I know that someday you will understand the choice I made. The choice Mike made.
I think that’s the hardest part about this, that you have to lose us both, and I wish there was another way, that I could spare you that pain. I wish there was a way I could save Mike. But I can’t and I can’t save myself either. Not even for you.
Instead, I ask you to lean on our friends, to take the support I know they will offer you, and to take this chance to reconnect with your parents and Rebecca. You are not alone, Jake, even if you might feel like you are.
Besides, I will always be with you. I truly believe that. That our love will transcend time and space and it will live on in you.
We only had a brief moment, but sometimes that is all you need. Your love helped shape me, in more ways than you can ever know, and I hope you never regret loving me in return. I am so glad that I got to be your wife, even if it was only for a short moment. That one day was the happiest day that any woman has ever had in the history of time and space (and hey, after our time on La Huerta I’m an expert on time, so I feel qualified to make that claim).
You are the love of my life, Jake McKenzie, of a thousand lifetimes and I am a better person for having loved you and I hope that one day you might say the same of me. That you’ll be able to remember the good times, the way we loved, and not the end. That you’ll understand that while our time together was brief, it was extraordinary.
Some love stories don’t get happy endings, but that doesn’t make them any less extraordinary, and baby, we were destined to be extraordinary.
Love Always,
Stephanie
