Page 138 of Remember Us This Way

“Nothing,” Mom says, shaking her head as she pulls out of her parking spot and takes off toward the lake, but I see a glimmer of happiness in her eyes, and despite the reckless things I’m admitting to, I know she’s glad that I’ve had my chance to walk on the wild side, that I haven’t spent these past eighteen years being an overly good girl who never got a chance to really live. But since the second Noah stormed back into my life, he’s made sure that I’ve lived so enormously that it’ll be enough for a million lifetimes, and yet, not nearly enough for just this one.

We pull up at the lake a moment later, driving through the twisty dirt road to get in. Then, instead of having to get out to walk, Mom drives straight past the parking lot and right up to the water. “Should we get out and sit by the water?” Mom asks, despite all of us already finished with our ice cream.

It’s a no-brainer, and we all pile out of the car, tossing our shoes aside so we can stroll right down to the water’s edge. I stand with Mom, her arm around my waist to hold me up as Hazel pulls up her pant legs and walks calf-deep into the water.

As I search for a log to sit on, a throat clears behind us, and the sound is all too familiar. I whip around to find Noah standing a little further down the lake, looking just as sexy as last night. Instead of the black suit he wore to prom, he’s in a gray one, and the top few buttons are undone just the way I like it.

He looks amazing, and as much as it kills me to have to let him go so soon, I hope he’s able to move on and find something incredible with a woman who inspires him to be everything I know he can be. But on the down-low, I hope he doesn’t love her quite as much as he loved me.

A smile pulls at my lips as he walks toward me. “What are you doing here?” I ask as he steps right into my arms, taking my weight from my mom. “How’d you know we were here? No, better yet, why are you in a suit? Was the baby-pushing party that fancy? I thought it was a casual thing.”

Noah just laughs, and as his fingers brush up and down my arm, he leaves a trail of goosebumps everywhere our skin touches. “Walk with me,” he murmurs in that deep tone that makes me believe that nothing bad could ever happen in this dark world.

We make our way a little further down the lake, my feet barely skimming across the water’s edge. “You’re being awfully shady, Noah Ryan,” I say. “Explain yourself.”

“Can’t I just do something nice for my girl?”

I narrow my eyes. He knows how I feel about surprises. I like giving them, love it even, but the whole receiving thing has always been a sore point for me, and over the past few weeks, the surprises just seem to keep rolling in.

He takes me around the bend in the lake, and when I glance up and peer out into the opening, my heart swells bigger than it’s ever been. My eyes instantly fill with unshed tears. “Noah,” I gasp, clinging on to him with everything I am.

Hundreds of long-stemmed red roses have been planted into the ground to form a large semi-circle with dozens of candles scattered among them. Fairy lights hang from the trees above, creating a beautiful canopy over the rose-lined circle below, and if that weren’t enough to take my breath away, the words MARRY ME are written in giant light letters, creating the most stunning backdrop.

I fall into him, my knees going weak. I knew he might try to make some grand gesture over the next few weeks, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that he’d propose.

My heart has never beat so fast, and as he takes my hand and leads me toward the rose-lined circle, my whole body goes weak, but for the first time in months, it’s not because of the cancer or medications pulsing through my veins.

We enter the semi-circle, and as he leads me right into the middle and turns to face me, I take a quick look around, which is when I see my whole family—Mom and Dad standing in each other’s arms, tears in my mother’s eyes, while my dad . . . God, he’s never looked at me with such pride before. Aunt Maya is here, her arm around Hope’s shoulder, and damn it, I’m going to have to have a word with her about secret keeping, but it can wait because all that matters right now is the man standing before me.

He clutches my hands, his thumbs rolling over my knuckles. “Zo, you’ve been my world since the day I first met you. You’ve been my everything. My bestest friend, my partner in crime, my salvation when the world was closing in on me, and through it all, you’ve been the love of my life. I’m proud that you’ve allowed me to be the man by your side right from the beginning, and you know that I’ll be right here, holding your hand until the end. Getting to see you grow from the scrawny little kid who went mud diving with me into the radiant, incredible woman you are today has been and will always be my greatest honor. And Zo,” he says, pausing a moment. “No words will ever be enough to express just how in love I am with you, and while I know our time is limited, I want to be able to give you everything you’ve always deserved.”

Tears flow from my eyes as I clutch his hands tighter. His words play on repeat in my mind, and my heart has never been so full. “Just having you by my side for the past eighteen years is more than I could have ever asked for, Noah,” I tell him, my voice breaking over the lump in my throat, my lips starting to tremble. “I love you more every day, and getting to walk this life with you has been the greatest gift of all.”

He smiles and leans into me, gently brushing his lips over mine. “Always, Zozo,” he murmurs. “You’ll always be the other half of my soul. Without you, I’m not whole, and while having to learn to walk this earth alone is going to be the hardest thing I’ll ever do, I want to treasure every last moment I have with you.”

With that, he inches back just a bit, putting space between us as he drops to one knee. Releasing one of my hands, he pulls a small velvet box from his pocket. He holds it up toward me, and my hands shake as he opens the lid, revealing a beautiful diamond ring—a diamond ring that I’d recognize anywhere.

I suck in a gasp, my eyes lifting to his. “Is that?”

“The same one I proposed to you with when I was seven,” he confirms.

“But how did you—”

“Your dad found it,” he says, squeezing my hand. “He kept it for you—for us—because even back then, they all knew we’d make it right here.”

“Noah,” I breathe, the tears graduating from a steady flow into a raging river.

“Zo,” he says, his voice shifting, a seriousness wrapping around us and closing us into this beautiful private bubble for this moment I’ve always dreamed about. “You had me wrapped around your little finger from the day I first met you, and every day since has led us right here. I’ve always known that this is the path we would take and that you would be the one I would give myself to, vowing to love you in front of all our friends and family for as long as we both shall live. And I’ve been so lucky and grateful that you’ve opened your world to me and loved me in return, even when I didn’t deserve it. Every piece of me belongs to you, Zoey James, and though we won’t have as much time as we always dreamed of, nothing would make me happier than to be your husband.” He pauses, holding my stare, those dark eyes so full of undeniable, overwhelmingly pure love. “Zoey, will you marry me?”

A wide smile stretches across my face, and I fall right into his open arms, our bodies colliding as tears stream down my face. “Yes,” I whimper. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

Noah holds me so damn tight as our family cheers for us, and honestly, I’d forgotten they were even there. He crushes his lips to mine, kissing me so tenderly, and even through our kiss, it’s impossible to wipe the smile off my face. I’ve never been so happy.

Over the past few months, I had to come to terms with the fact that marrying Noah Ryan was only ever going to be a dream for me. But the fact that Noah is willing to get down on one knee and ask me to marry him, despite the heartbreak he knows is coming his way, fills me with the most genuine, unadulterated, pure kind of love.

When we finally break apart, Noah takes my hand and slides the ring into place, right where it’s always belonged.

He kisses me again, and with that, we’re swarmed by our family, each one of them crashing into us and wrapping us into their warm arms, not a single dry eye to be seen. Noah doesn’t dare let go of my hand, keeping me right by his side as our family offers us their congratulations.

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