6 months later

"You've all heard her story. We've mourned with her. We've fallen in love with her strength and the ability to overcome truly anything that life throws her way. She's here now with us here on Good Day USA, please help us give a warm welcome to Ms. Briar Oakland!"

The audience applause blares throughout the studio, and I do my best to put on a nice smile. The harsh stage lights are sweltering, but they've loaded me up with enough powder that I don't sweat on camera.

"Briar, you've been someone our studio has just been dying to get in for an interview since we heard about your story." That's only half true. Isla Burr has been blowing up my phone nonstop from the moment I left the hospital. The story of a small-town serial killing is interesting. When it happens to someone with millions of followers on TikTok? Then it gets really good for interviewers.

My following has almost tripled since the story broke.

That's what happens when you're the only survivor in a "massacre."

Peggy has been having a field day since I was cleared to post on social media again. She keeps begging me to do a storytime, but I don't feel that's the right amount of reverence for the situation.

These were people I cared very deeply for. They deserve more than a storytime with people who are going to leave classless comments.

I feel like time has been in fast forward since the death of my friends just six months prior. Everyone's funerals were devastating. I shed so many tears at Ezra and Diana's that I can't even tell you how I managed to find any to spare at Declan's. But I did.

I loved Declan.

"You know, I really try to be selective with these things. I don't want just anywhere getting to run wild with the story of my friends. I want them to be remembered for who they were. Good people who were in a tragic situation. I don't want them to be just another story that a woman in her thirties tells on a podcast while she drinks wine with her friends."

Isla nods her head sympathetically. "How has life changed for you since it all happened?"

Isn't that the question of the hour? My best friend, who I thought had been dead for six years, was actually alive this whole time with intent to murder me. That sparks more than just a few trust issues. I've been in therapy for the past six months, working through the betrayal that I've felt. Dealing with PTSD from all the tricks that she pulled to torment us.

It's been a lot to handle.

"I've been just doing my best to work through everything," I say. Tears well up in my eyes. I promised myself that I wasn't going to cry, but here I am on live national television. "They were some of the people I cared about most. The man—" I pause and take a deep breath. "The man that I loved was murdered that day. It's not something you just bounce back from. I'm taking each day a step at a time."

"You're so brave," says Isla with a smile. "I know that you've talked about using your influence to want to make a difference. What exactly were you planning on doing now? What are Briar's next steps?"

I honestly don't know.

Part of me wants to be able to tell her that I'm going to turn into this mega boss babe and break into some industry, but honestly, life has been hard. I want to look inside every closet that I walk by. I want to open up the shower curtain every time I go to the bathroom. I refuse to get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water.

I just want to heal.

My therapist keeps telling me that comes with time, but I don't think there's ever a time when you completely heal from watching your friends die. There are mornings where I wake up, and the grief of what happened suffocates me. Then I wake up, and it feels almost like a normal day. Then the guilt of forgetting what happened to them sweeps over me, and I'm back at square one.

"At the end of the day, all I want is to heal," I tell Isla. "Whatever that looks like, whenever that happens, that is a day I'm longing for."

I don't know when that will ever come true. But I do know that I'm going to keep pushing through until I find peace again.

5 Years Later

"Alright, guys! I'm going in for my last appointment! Wish us luck!"

I click off the camera and lean my head back on the car rest and take a deep breath. "Our lives are about to change forever, you know?" I say as I look over and see my beautiful husband, Tyler, staring at me. His kind eyes glow as he rests his hand on my belly. The baby girl that is floating around in there reacts accordingly like she always does. Kicking the shit out of my rib cage. 

I get chills every time I feel her move.

She isn't supposed to be able to be here.

When Maggie shot me in my stomach, the doctors didn't think it was going to be possible for me to have kids. I didn't think much of it as a twenty-four-year-old woman, but everything changed when I met Tyler. I saw a future for myself with him and I growing old, watching our grandparents. He was amazing through all of it.

I wasn't the girl who survived a massacre. I was just Briar. The woman he loved. There was no complicated history. No toxic background. I found a man who loves me in a way that I didn't know was even humanly possible.

"Oh, but it will be for the better," Tyler gushes as he leans down and kisses my bump. My heart swells as I watch him do it. Then the baby inside of me decides to be a karate star, using the inside of my uterus as the dojo.

"Diana Hope," I say to my stomach. "If you don't stop all this right now, I swear I'm going to pull you out of there myself."

Tyler chuckles and runs around to my side of the car and opens the door. I take his hand, and he helps me waddle out of the car. My belly is so big at this point, it's basically my entire body. Tyler smiles at me and grabs my hand in his as we walk into the doctor's office.

Five years ago, I went on national television and spoke about how I hoped to heal and find peace. Now, I realize that while healing isn't a linear thing, I still have days I mourn my friends harder than ever. But those are fewer and farther between.

Now, I look down at my belly, to the healthy baby kicking inside of me, in front of me, and see my husband who adores me, and I realize that peace found me. My life might not have gone exactly how I pictured it, but in this moment, I'm just happy to be here.

I grip my stomach as Tyler opens the door. Diana Hope flips and somersaults her way throughout my stomach. I can't help the laugh that escapes me as we walk into the hospital.

Briar Oakland, against all odds, has found her happily ever after.