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This really befuddled look pours through his face like a rainfall of emotion. Drew is so stoic most of the time – hell, all of the time – that it’s almost comical.
I laugh, anyhow, and then I start to cry softly. Salt in my tears makes all the cuts on my face sting.
“Let me do this properly,” he announces, reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket. What’s he doing? He couldn’t possibly have a --
A ring?
A tiny gray velvet box is in his hand, and he flicks it open with his thumb like it’s a lighter and he’s starting a flame.
Which he is.
Only with a diamond.
My mouth drops open. “Drew!” I gasp. “I saw this on your nightstand table that day. I remember. It was next to that ridiculous book about airplanes -- ” I clap both hands over my own mouth to stop the stupid from pouring out of me.
He drops to one knee.
Oh, my GOD.
“I said I needed to do this properly.”
“You came prepared,” I squeak through my open fingers.
“I came determined to win.” He reaches for my hand. “To win your heart, Lindsay. Forever.”
You ever realize that the world just continues marching on, second by second, regardless of your internal emotional state? That’s how it feels, breathing. Drew is on one knee. His hands are held out to me. One hand holds a box with a diamond ring in it, marquise cut, glittering like his eyes. Shining with love.
He’s begging me with those eyes. All of the love in the world is centered on me right now.
And I can’t breathe.
I’m holding my breath for all the good reasons. Every damn one of them. This is what joy feels like. This is what hope feels like.
I’ve known love. I’ve known happiness. I’ve known contentment, though only in slivers.
But joy? Joy has been elusive. It has been forced into hiding for so very long it’s not sure that there’s a safe place to come out.
Drew, before me, makes that safe space. It’s the air between us. It’s the look he’s giving me right now.
Pure joy.
Joy releases us. It gives us room. The sense of power that comes from being vulnerable cannot be measured. Joy lets us be our true self. Joy doesn’t judge.
And joy is right here, smiling at us both, telling me to say yes.
When joy gives you a suggestion – you listen.
“Yes,” I say, the word long and sweet, like the sun lives inside me and I’m opening my mouth to spread the light of love. Drew’s eyes glisten – he’s not crying, but now I am – and he takes my hand, so solemnly.
The ring slides up, over the knuckle of the left ring finger, settling in like it’s been there forever.
This is the part where people kiss, right? Where we hug and he picks me up and twirls me around in the air.
Where we breathe in each other’s fire and breathe out shared passion. Zeal. Zest for a life well lived for the next sixty years.
Right?
Instead, we’re deliberate. Achingly authentic every microsecond. Drew and I know the long, horrible road we’ve traveled to reach this point.
