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“Dean, what are you doing?” I asked. I felt supremely awkward just standing there with my back to everyone while Dean gave his little speech into the microphone.
He lowered the microphone again, speaking just to me. “I’m building up to it. Give it a minute.” He winked, then lifted the microphone again.
“But then we wound up getting obligated by work to go to the same conference and the same wedding week here in Fairhope. It took about two minutes to realize my feelings for Pearl were way more than pretend. Little by little, I was falling for her.”
I felt my eyebrows come together and my stomach threaten to drop out. He what?
“But there was a problem. All her life, Pearl was treated wrong by men. They didn’t appreciate what they had with her, and they screwed it up. All my life, I’ve been screwing up relationships. One way or another, I find a way. So once I realized how much I cared about her, I saw the truth. I wasn’t different than the men before. I was one of the jerks who kept breaking her heart. So what did it matter if I was crazy about her? Telling her my feelings was only going to end in heartbreak. I was certain I’d screw it up, and I knew Pearl deserved better than that. So I did what I thought was the right thing.”
All I could do was stare with my mouth open. Did he really mean all of this? It brought me back to the dream I’d had after my drunken night at the rehearsal dinner. Hadn’t I dreamed he said something like that to me? Or maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. Maybe that was just a fuzzy memory of something he thought I wouldn’t remember?
“I hid my feelings from her. I thought I was being noble. Honorable. It was self-sacrifice for the greater good, or something stupid like that. But I never stopped to think that it wasn’t my choice.” He lowered his eyes from the crowd and looked into mine, microphone still up to his lips. “Trusting someone with your heart is a scary thing. It’s dangerous. It can lead to heart break. But I never gave you the chance to decide if you wanted to trust me with yours.”
“Dean,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”
“I’m crazy about you, Pearl. I’ve been a complete mess ever since I went back to Manhattan without you. It feels like life lost all of its color. Like I’m just going through the motions. All I do is think about the time we had together and how much I miss it. How much I miss you. So I’m here to tell you that I’ve never been as happy as I was when we were together. I love you, Pearl. And I wanted you to know that, even if you don’t feel the same way. Because you deserve to make your own choice, and I was an idiot for taking that choice away from you. Oh, I also realized I’m not like those assholes who came before. I’ll never make you regret it if you trust me.”
He got down on one knee and held up a little necklace. It was in the shape of a frog. “Sorry,” he said. “This was all kind of a last-minute realization, and the frog was the only necklace I could find at the airport.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt a hot tear roll down my cheek. “Okay,” I said, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Pearl Moreno,” he said into the microphone. “Will you be my girlfriend? Just to clarify, it’d be real this time. I wanted a few witnesses, in case people are skeptical given our history.”
His words opened something in me. Something I’d been trying desperately to close off these last few months. It was hope. I felt all the hope come pouring out of me. It rushed from my center, warm and brilliant, washing over me like some kind of cleansing fire.
This was what I wanted. It was what I didn’t dare to hope for anymore. It was what I needed so desperately I couldn’t admit it, because that would be admitting how imperfect my life was.
I rushed forward, practically tackling him in a hug.
“For the sake of the crowd,” Dean said into the microphone over my shoulder. “I think we need an official ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
He lifted the microphone to my lips. “Yes,” I laughed. “Yes!”
Molly was the first to jump up and pump her little fist into the air. “So freaking romantic. Yesss!” There was scattered laughter and then people were clapping for us.
It was ridiculous, over-the-top, and so totally Dean that I found myself loving every bit of it.
“Sorry about the frog necklace,” he whispered to me. “Once my little sister helped me realize what an idiot I’d been, I came straight here. I didn’t want to wait.”
