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Best of all, we didn’t win because the quilt matched us.

We won because we listened—to each other.

As Mina congratulates us and confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling, enveloping us, Rhett pulls me into a kiss and murmurs, “I couldn’t imagine myself standing beside anyone else.”

I look into his eyes and see a hundred possible futures. But for now, I’ll take this moment.

“Me neither,” I murmur.

Epilogue

Love is a funny thing. If I’d been asked months ago what a perfect relationship looked like, I probably would’ve answered something about having butterflies in your stomach and your partner loving you even with your flaws.

Or maybe I would’ve said something about soulmates.

And you know what? I would’ve been wrong.

The one thing I’ve learned through all this is that you can be handed your soulmate on a silver platter, but you still have to put in the work to turn that person from a soulmate into a partner.

I think that’s what the magic was trying to tell us all along.

Because love doesn’t require perfection. It requires the willingness to suffer through the hard parts while holding each other up and keeping one another accountable.

It means showing up even when you don’t feel like it.

That’s what I’ve learned about love, and it was reinforced this morning at 3:00 a.m., when Rhett woke up and pulled me to him, whispered in my hair that he loves me, and I whispered back that I love him, too.

“You may now kiss the bride,” the preacher says.

I clap and look over at Rhett, who grins at me.

Under an arch threaded with red roses stand Beau and Clarice.

Yep, they did it. They took the plunge. Even though they didn’t win the magical matchmaking competition, those two still got hitched.

Beau leans down and kisses Clarice. The audience cheers, clapping and hooting.

There are lots of familiar faces in the crowd. Beside me is Rowe, who holds baby Georgia. She’s six months old now and growing like a weed. On the other side of Rhett sit Coco and Stone.

They got married last month and are our resident newlyweds. They’re figuring out how to live in a house with one sheepicorn in the backyard. For the most part, I think it’s going well, but Coco complains that the sheepicorn, Hercules, keeps trying to nibble on her clothes—when she’s wearing them.

The other couples from the contest are doing well, too. Callie and Jeff, even though they may have had a rocky start in the points department, are engaged and, from what I hear, getting married sometime next year.

Maya and Logan are also doing well. They’ve moved in together and, according to Maya, are happy.

As for Holly and Jace? I’m gonna be honest—I don’t actually know how they’re doing, but I hear they’re still together.

It was all fake, huh?

That was just a way for Jace to steal my power. So I don’t let him anymore, which means I don’t let him take up any free space in my head.

My parents are still doing great. We chat every few days. Dad’s playing golf, and Mom spends her time painting the ocean—on canvas, just so we’re clear.

Rhett still sees the counselor once a month, and though I haven’t had any asthma crises since the last one, I have the feeling that if I did, he wouldn’t freeze this time. He’d be right beside me, helping me every step of the way.

He has taken me fishing on more than one occasion, and it’s starting to grow on me, though I don’t take the fish off the hook by myself or put any live bait on the hook, either.

Baby steps.