It turned out Cooper really hadn’t been kidding about wanting to get married. One of the things he’d been doing on Bishop’s Cay while I was wandering around looking for him was buying us rings. Not fancy rings, of course—tourist rings carved out of conch shells. Twenty-dollar rings. You might barely notice we have them on.
But we do have them on.
The night we got together, we stayed up until sunrise. And sometime around threeAMwe found ourselves sitting on Cooper’s balcony, watching the moon over the ocean.
“Remember when you wanted to get married earlier?” I said.
“Of course.”
“I might have overreacted a bit on that.”
“Might have?”
“Says the man who once threw up a corn dog when he had to kiss me.”
“I blame the corn dog.”
“But,” I went on, “I actually think it’s a good idea.”
“What is?”
“Getting married.”
“You do?”
I met his eyes. “I do.”
And at that, he was out of his deck chair and down on his knees in front of mine. “If I propose to you right now, will you say yes?”
I took in the sight of him like that, with the moon and the ocean behind him.
“Because if you’re not joking,” Cooper went on, “it’s happening.”
I could tell he was serious, and I could have backed off right then. I could have waved him away and laughed. I knew just from his expression that he was going to do it unless I stopped him.
So I didn’t stop him.
Instead, very deliberately, looking into his eyes, I said, “I’m not joking.”
And so he took the seaglass ring he’d once given me off my hand. And then we put new rings on each other. And then we got engaged—and started dating.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TOPork Pie? Was he brought to justice?
Yeah—no.
We reported him… and nothing else ever came of it.
I hate to say it, and I’m sorry if this is news, but we live in a world where villains pull off a lot of villainry.
I wish it were different, but I don’t know how to change it. All I know how to do is hang out with good people—keep on being as non-villainous as I can.
In the end, Pork Pie got to slash Cooper, and Cooper got… a scar.
A scar that he thinks is “cool” and that he loves to show off at the beach, but a scar all the same.
That’s the truth. Pork Pie got away with it.
But Cooper got… me.
