Page 9 of Dare to Need

“You shouldn’t—“

“Just open them,” he cut me off, handing me the smaller box.

My heart raced as I pulled at the bright red bowstring surrounding the glossy gold paper. When it unraveled, I peeled back the paper to find a black velvet box. An audible gasp left me as I opened the box to find a beautiful solitary diamond dangling from a daintily thin rose gold rope chain.

I looked back up at Garth as he took the box from my trembling hands. “It’s so beautiful,” I whispered.

He tugged on the velvet pillow the necklace was laying on and pulled it from the box. The diamond sparkled in the morning light streaming in from the windows.

Garth rose the necklace between us and looked at me as he said, “It’s an uncut diamond. Pulled straight from the earth and polished so it could shine in its truest state. Without being molded into something it’s not. After everything you’ve been through, feeling like you had to force yourself to be someone you never were, I wanted you to have a reminder that, just like this diamond, you are most beautiful when you are your truest self.”

Emotion swelled in my chest as I reached out and rubbed his arm. “That means more to me than you could ever know.”

I lifted my hair as he leaned forward and clasped the chain behind my neck. I trailed my fingertips along the chain to the bottom where the diamond sat against my chest. Its edges were slightly rough, but as I looked down at it, it glimmered with such raw, untouched beauty.

“Thank you.” I beamed at him.

Garth leaned forward, giving me a sweet kiss on the lips.

“Time for your next one,” he said as he grabbed the significantly larger box and placed it in my hands.

I slid off the matching red bow and started tearing into the gold paper. As soon as I saw the lettering on the box, I squealed, ripping the rest of the paper away.

“Babe!” My eyes darted back and forth between Garth’s smiling face and the brand new Canon EOS 5D box. “I can’t believe you bought this for me.” I’d mentioned a few times how excited I was to start earning money through my upcoming internship so I could invest in this camera—one of the best for wedding photography.

“I knew how much you wanted to have a new camera going into your internship so you could learn how to use it specifically for wedding photography.”

Anxiety soared through me as the sudden realization of how much he’d spent on me for graduation presents sunk in. “Garth, I can’t accept this. It’s—“ I looked down at the box and the diamond hanging around my neck. “It’s too much.”

When I looked up at him, his eyes were a molten gray, his jaw set hard. “Eva, if I could give you the whole world, I would. When are you going to learn that you are worthy of everything good in your life? That you deserve to be showered with the most precious gifts and loved beyond measure.”

I swallowed hard under the intensity of his words. Because the truth was, I was still learning what love truly meant and trying to un-learn what my past relationship had taught me. The self-worth that Garth wanted me so desperately to have would take time. And I was trying hard to get to that place, but there was still a lot I had to sift through to get there.

Garth leaned forward, taking the sides of my face in his hands. “I know it’s hard. After everything you’ve been through. But try to trust that when I do something nice for you, it is strictly out of love and there is never a reason for you to feel like you don’t deserve it. Or that I am going to hold it against you one day. That’s not who I am.”

My head tilted down as my cheeks flushed. “I know it’s not you. I’m still in the process of letting those old parts of me go.” I let out a long exhale.

With his thumb, he raised my head so I was looking him in the eyes. “I know you are. And I’ll be here every step of the way to remind you of how loved you are.”

I could see it in his eyes, feel it in the softness of his touch—the love he had for me. There were times when it felt overwhelming. Like there was so much of it, I wasn’t sure if I could stand under its weight. His love for me was like standing at the edge of the ocean. The vastness was just as striking as the subtle warmth I felt from the lapping waves hitting my skin.

I opened my heart a little more and let his love wash over me, taking it all in. “Thank you for my presents.”

“You’re welcome,” he said with a kiss to my forehead. “Now get that cute ass of yours dressed and we can grab a bite at Table Blanc before we have to hit the road.”

Stella placed the plate of eggs, bacon, and two waffles in front of me. I took a hearty breath in and groaned as my stomach rumbled. The distant clatter of dishes sounded from the kitchen as Garth and I were the only ones in his restaurant, stealing a meal before the doors were open to the public.

“Have you started looking for a place to live in New York?” I asked between bites.

Garth smiled at me over the rim of his glass of orange juice. “I’ve found a few places that seem promising and are close to the gallery.”

In January, we both celebrated belated Christmas gifts of me getting the internship I wanted with Deborah Montel, an award-winning wedding photographer in New York, and Garth’s paintings being displayed in Studio 628 for a fall collection.

I was so nervous that we would be living in separate states once summer concluded, but it seemed that everything was working in our favor. Those few months of wondering what the future would hold for us were absolute hell. We were both nervous wrecks, but neither one of us wanted the other to sacrifice their dreams.

“Did you end up looking into that roommate application website?”

I sat my fork down and took a long swig of my grapefruit juice. “Yeah. I think it’ll work out fine. But I will probably need four roommates to make rent with the internship salary.”

---