Epilogue

~~~

Cheyenne

After being kidnapped, I thought things would have changed much more.

I was still working at Liquidity as a bartender, they still hadn't hired a full-time replacement for me yet. Owen had found a new job, closer to the bar. Actually, he worked as a bouncer at the club, so he was always in the same building as me. He was overprotective, but he knew I could hold my ground with the men that hit on me, he just wanted to be closer to me since I went missing when he was just a couple streets away.

The police had never found the men responsible for my kidnapping. They assumed they were leaving town with me, and once I had escaped them they just ditched me and continued on as fast as they could without drawing attention to themselves. The hunt for them continued for about two months before they believed it would go nowhere.

My friends were still there, even though things were a bit awkward at first. I had missed four months of school, and people were expected me to come back 'changed,' but I was just expecting it to be another day in late April but instead, I came back to early-August.

I had managed to let the college enroll me in the fall semester to continue my courses, and they even let me finish the coursework that I had missed the previous semester with the professors as long as I could get them to agree to it. I had managed to get them all to agree and was even able to finish all of the spring-semester work before the fall semester began. The college had logged the courses as summer courses rather than fall courses, and they had been very flexible with me throughout the entire process.

It had been over a year since I had been taken and I had tried everything to regain the memories that I had lost. I had gone to multiple therapists, talked with neurologists and psychologists, and even tried hypnotherapy. Nothing seemed to work. Sometimes I would get flashes of feelings and sensations, but nothing concrete enough to give to the police, so eventually Owen and I decided it was better I stop trying. If my brain didn't want me to remember it, there must be a reason why.

Instead, I focused on school. I was now nearing the end of my junior year, and I had never been so confident with what I was doing. I was studying music, with the aim to become a musical therapist, but I was also getting my teaching degree in science so I could have something to lean on depending on what worked out for me. Due to the extensive schedules of both of my majors, I had been taking extra courses each semester, as well as a couple of courses during the winter semester, in order to graduate on time. I had been able to to stay on track, even after going missing, only due to the fact that I had been able to keep the credits that I had almost lost that spring.

Now, I was about to finish out my second-to-last-year in college, and then I would be able to continue on with my life and leave this town, that only saw me as the kidnapped girl, behind.

~~~

Owen

It had been over a year since Chey was taken, as it was almost the end of her current spring semester, and I couldn't believe how quickly the time had been passing. We had gone through multiple treatments in the past eight months to try to regain Chey's memories, but in the end, decided that it might be for the best.

If Chey couldn't remember the events of her kidnapping, maybe that was a blessing. From the flashes of emotion she had remembered during her many visits to different doctors, I had gathered one thing: it wasn't pleasant. If anything, it seemed as though she went through some form of torture, emotional or otherwise.

Leaving Chey oblivious to those memories seemed to be the best thing I could do to protect her, seeing as no one in the police department could find any sort of lead on the men that had taken her. I was frustrated with them, Chey had to escape by herself, they hadn't helped her. I couldn't help but wonder where she would be if she hadn't managed to ditch those guys.

But that didn't matter now; that wouldn't matter now. Chey was home, and I would protect her from anything and everything. I was willing to give up anything to keep her safe.