The days after that were happy days, my relationship with Judy was the same yet different, sometimes I would just catch her looking at me while smiling and her smile would brighten up even more when our eyes met, it was just small things like those, but they still would make my day.

Living together in an environment like this made us get even closer and understand each other even better.

Judy was understanding all the way through and never once did she push me or anything like that, she was always there for me, and she always stood by my side.

Even though we weren't officially dating, we would still go on dates and the like, most of our time was spent together and just that was enough for us at that time.

It took me around half a year or so to finally decide to take things further.

At that time I had already thrown away any delusional thoughts I had, I knew then that my relationship with Brittney wasn't healthy in any way. I accepted that, and I was going to try and be a better me.

Taking that final step towards our relationship was hard, I knew deep down that Judy was nothing like Brittney, and that she would never do anything to hurt me, but I still found it hard to remove those thoughts from my mind, hard to make myself believe it deep down.

Yet, I still felt that I was ready to take that step, to try and take things further with Judy.

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I still remember that day...

We got home from work, and as Judy was lying on the bed I stood in front of her and gave her a small box, she was confused at first about what it was and what it was for, but as she opened it, I saw her eyes go wide.

Inside the box was a glass puppy keychain, it was the same as the one Judy had given me all those months ago, and what started all of this.

As she was still frozen and surprised over that, I leaned closer to her, and I asked:

"Wi.. Will you go out with me...?" I did practise all of that before yet I still messed it up a bit, not that Judy cared, she was frozen with a shocked look on her face, and as she understood what I just said, tears started falling while she nodded her head and said yes repeatedly.

We hugged as we cried for a bit... And on the same day, we had our first kiss.

I would like to say that it was 'a happy ever after' after that, but unfortunately, it wasn't...

Because of what happened to me before, I found it hard to react in a certain way to some things, and dealing with that in my relationship with Judy was hard.

Many times when she leaned in to give me a quick kiss I would freeze and I would start panicking a bit, entering a panicked state with my mind remembering what I used to deal with, Judy would always notice and try to calm me down and apologize after that, she soon stopped doing that and would always make it known whenever she would try to kiss me.

There are also those times when we would be just messing around, wrestling, tickling each other or play fighting while laughing, when she would pin me down suddenly, or set on top of me and without I know it, I would find myself entering a panic attack, Judy would notice it fast enough and stand up and do her best to calm me down,

Even small things, like her being in a bad mood or a bit angry about something would make me turn panicky and jumpy, thinking that it might be because of something I did or that she might turn to me to vent.

They weren't things I had control over, It was just my body and mind still living in that same state, and reacting in the same way.

Nothing of what I feared ever happened, and instead Judy would always try to get me to calm down, apologize and make sure that something like that would never happen again. She was everything Brittney never was and more.

And because of that, I'm getting better, I'm improving day by day, and both of us are doing our best to strive for our happy ever after. We might not have had it straight away, and I'm still living in the shadow of my old relationship and self, but, we are working towards our happy ever after, and we know that we will eventually have it.

""The End!""