Page 110 of Don't Tell

Her face goes through several things at once. Recognition first. Then panic. Then a third thing softer than both.

"Cade."

"Come with me."

"Cade —"

"Come with me, baby."

I take her hand.

I walk her to the platform.

She is looking at me with her face halfway between laughing and crying. The dress moves around her knees. The locket catches the chandelier light.

I take the microphone.

I don't need it. I don't raise my voice. The room has gone the kind of quiet a room goes when five hundred people have all decided at once to be present.

I look at her.

"I have been trying to think of the right place to do this for a month."

She is looking at me.

"I realized the right place is wherever she is."

The room makes a sound.

"I love her."

She closes her eyes for one second. She opens them.

"I'm going to love her for the rest of my life."

I get down on one knee, take the box out of my inside pocket, and open it.

I look up at her.

"Suzanne Jenkins, will you marry me?"

She is nodding before I have finished her name.

"Yes, Cade. Yes."

She is crying, laughing, and reaching for me before I have stood.

The room erupts.

Beau is yelling something inappropriate from the side of the platform. Vivienne is crying into her champagne. Henry has his hand flat against the small of her back. Theo is howling. Iris is somewhere in the back of the room with her hand over her mouth.

I slide the ring onto her finger.

The pale green stone catches the light.

She looks down at her hand, then up at me. Her eyes are wet. She is biting the inside of her cheek the way she did on the porch in November, at Renée's kitchen counter, at every moment she’s been holding herself together — piece by piece.

"Cade."