Page 232 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

I smiled at her.

The doors opened. Light spilled in.

I took a breath, and we walked.

We were in our new house, getting married in our garden.

The garden was already perfect. Cassian had spent the last three months making it so. Not just tomatoes anymore. There were roses climbing the trellis he’d built himself, lavender along the path, and a small apple tree that he talked to every morning.

He proposed the day we moved in.

I had just stepped out of the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind me, when I stopped. My feet wouldn’t move. My breath caught somewhere between my chest and my throat.

He was on one knee in front of me, a ring box open in his trembling hands, his face tilted up toward mine like I was something he’d been waiting his whole life to see.

He was nervous. I could see it in the way his fingers trembled, the way he kept opening his mouth like the words were right there and then disappearing.

“I had a whole speech. But my whole mind is blank right now. So I’m just going to say everything that comes to mind.”

He took a breath. Let it out. Started again.

“I wanted to propose the day you decided to give me another chance.” His voice was low, rushed, like he was afraid that if he stopped, he wouldn’t be able to start again. “The day you kissed me in my office. The day you made me that cake. The day you said you loved me back. And then every day after that.”

His voice cracked.

“But I wanted it to be perfect. I kept thinking—not yet. Not perfect enough. She deserves perfect. She deserves something so beautiful she can’t say no.”

My throat was tight. I pressed my lips together.

“I wanted it absolutely perfect. So you would know. So you would see how much I love you.” A breath. “I had it all planned. After we moved in, I’d recreate our first date. The escape room. I’d get it all exactly right, the way I should have done it years ago. And then I’d ask.”

His eyes were bright, his jaw tight.

“But tonight. Before you left the room. I was standing here, looking at this house, and I said—I finally gave you your home back. And you—” His voice cracked. “You said, without even thinking, without missing a beat, you said, ‘You’re my home.’ And you kissed my cheek and left.”

A tear slipped down his face.

“You’re my home too, Alessia. You’ve always been my home. I’ve been so stupid, trying to find the perfect way to tell you. The perfect moment. The perfect words. Like I had to earn it. Like I had to deserve it.”

He looked up at me. His eyes were wet, his face open, his whole self laid bare at my feet.

“I don’t care about perfect anymore. I don’t care about any of it. I just want to ask you.” He took a breath, unsteady. “So, Alessia. Even if this isn’t perfect. Even if I’m not perfect. Will you marry me? Please?”

I was crying before he finished. I didn’t know when I’d started. I didn’t care.

I moved toward the side of the room, toward the nightstand where I had hidden it. The drawer slid open quietly in the hush of the hallway. My fingers found the box, small and velvet, and I carried it back to him.

He was still on his knees. His face was pale, his hands open in his lap, his eyes tracking me like he was afraid I’d disappear.

I sat on his leg, and his arm came around my waist immediately, steadying me, holding me close. I opened the box.

His eyes dropped to it.

His lips quivered.

“I have a ring for you now,” I said.

Years ago, when I had proposed the first time, it was because I needed to know. I needed to know if he loved me. His hands showed me, his eyes showed me, the way he showed up every day and never left showed me. But his mouth wouldn’t say the words. So I asked him to marry me instead. I thought if he said yes, that meant he loved me.