The Original Ending
I had written this ending pretty much as soon as I started writing The Story of Us. My original thoughts for a possible ending was that Ethan and Allison ended up becoming partners in Prairie Sky Books in the end. This was a much more cliche romance book ending, and I liked it for what it was, but it certainly didn’t fit the tone of what The Story of Us became. The worst part of writing this ending was that I wanted to use the beginning of the book…but I kept changing the beginning of the book, and kept having to remember to fix it. Over and over again because I edited and re-edited those first few pages way more times than I can count.
Allison saw Ethan sitting at the counter typing on his laptop. Anyone else might have assumed he was working on something to do with the shop, but she knew his writing face intimately. “What are you working on, Crump?”
Ethan smirked at her, “You’re not my assistant anymore, so you don’t get a sneak peek anymore…”
“No, but I am the co-owner of this fine establishment. That means half of that laptop and whatever you are writing belongs to me!”
Ethan said, “I am not sure it works that way.”
Allison spun the laptop towards herself and started reading, “It is now!”
The first thing Ethan noticed when he entered Big Jerry’s Fuel and Feed on the outskirts of Ashford, Iowa was that several of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling were buzzing and flickering. They were severely out of sync. If he was going to review this place on Yelp, he would probably have to post a warning to avoid this place if there was any chance you might have a seizure condition.
This wasn’t his first time in Ashford, but it was the first time he had gotten into town so late. It was close to 3 AM. Everything else was already long closed, so he was lucky to find this place still open.
Big Jerry’s was pretty much abandoned this hour of night. No other customers There was only one person working, though at first glance, it really didn’t seem like she was doing much work. She sat cross-legged on the counter in an oversized gray hoodie, a paperback balanced in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
Her name tag identified her as Sam. The sweatshirt swallowed her frame, making her look smaller than she probably was. She was about Ethan’s age, her dark hair loosely tied above her head in a messy bun, wisps of escaped hair hanging down partially hiding her face
She certainly didn’t seem to be going out of the way to impress anyone. If anything, she seemed completely unaware of herself. Yet there was something compelling about the way she presented herself, comfortable and completely unconcerned with what anyone else might think of her.
He looked at her, curious what she thought. Allison looked at him, and then promptly dumped the laptop in the nearest waste bin. Ethan said, “Well that was extreme. You could have just hit backspace.”
“I thought you were going to get away from writing ridiculous romance stories that could never possibly happen.”
“But this one did happen!”
She leaned over the counter and kissed him deeply, “Yeah, and that is what makes it so ridiculous!”
“You are impossible to please, Mrs Crump.”
She locked her fingers with him, looking down at their rings and said, “Maybe, but never stop trying.”
He brought her fingers to her lips, “I never will.”