Page 78 of Keeping Score

Her breath caught. I could see it in the air in front of her. Her dark hair streaming down around her shoulders, huge black oversized coat coming down to her knees. Green eyes wide and terrified as they glanced frantically between me, the ring, and our surroundings.

I knew what she was doing. Maggie was always looking for an escape strategy. No matter where she was, she needed to know where the exit was.

But it had never been me she’d been trying to escape from.

What was happening?

Maggie and a clear February night and Boston Harbor and diamond rings and the city lights. This was supposed to be our moment. It was supposed to be the start of our forever.

I thought it was.

But Maggie wasn’t responding, just staring down at the ring in my hands as if it were a bomb about to detonate instead of a promise of forever.

And because I could read her like a fucking book, I knew before her mouth even opened that her answer was about to tear my world apart.

Chapter Nineteen

Maggie

“Maggie,” he said, kneeling before me.

Oh.

“Will you marry me?”

Oh no.

His eyes were so earnest, so hopeful.

Mine were wide and panicked.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I felt myself seizing up as I stared down at the love of my life offering me the thing every girl dreamed of.

But I had to think, because he was watching me, face deflating at the deafening silence.

“Maggie,” he pleaded.

I looked around for an exit, for a way to escape this situation. A way to hit pause on this moment.

“Maggie, say something.”

He was statue-still in the proposal stance, save for the slight tremble of his hand—the one offering me a life with him.

“Oh, I—” I faltered. “But why?”

“Why?” he asked, looking as if I’d burned him. “Because I love you, Mags. Because I thought you loved me—”

“I do.”

I did. More than anything. That would never change.

“—because when we talk about our life, we talk about being together forever.”

“We will be.” I emphasized, grabbing his hands as he rose to his feet.

“Then why does it feel like you’re rejecting me?” he asked. “That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I just don’t understand why anything has to change. I thought you were happy with the way things are.”