Page 80 of Your Chorus
“It will,” I assure her. “It is.”
There’s still a question in her eyes, still some piece of uncertainty my answer isn’t enough to take away.
Do it, something in me urges.Do it now.
I wanted to wait. We said we’d go slow. I was going to give us a chance to live together for a while, to let things settle more.
If you wanted to wait, you wouldn’t have bought it already. You wouldn’t carry it around with you wherever you go.
Keeping it with me is stupid regardless. Knowing my luck, I’ve probably lost it already. I should just bury it in a drawer in my room and forget about it for a few months.
Do it now. She needs to know.
She’s still staring up at me with that hint of hesitation, and I want to reassure her. I want to ease every worry in her mind and make her understand that for me, this is it. There are no more excuses or roadblocks. There’s only her.
“Wait a second.”
I push up off the couch and dig around in the bag I brought with me that’s still sitting on the floor over by the front door, right beside the first items of our clothing to be torn off last night. For a moment, I think I really have lost the thing, but then my hand closes around the box it came in, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
I flip the lid open and pinch the ring between my finger and thumb.
When I turn around and walk back over to the couch, Roxanne’s expression goes from curious to alarmed.
“Cole.” Her eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. “Cole, what are you doing?”
I lower myself to my knees in front of her, and her hand flies to her mouth. I hold the ring up between us, watching her eyes flick rapidly between it and my face.
I honestly considered asking Monroe to help me find a ring. Any time Roxy and I have walked by a jewellery store together, she’s given a look of contempt to the ring cases and muttered, “Ew.” She’s told me herself that if she’s ever going to agree to wear a ring every day for the rest of her life, it better be fucking stylish.
I don’t know if this one counts as ‘fucking stylish,’ but I saw it in the window of some little boutique place in the Plateau, and it just seemed likeher. The band is a plain gold one, and the diamond is rough-hewn rock—raw and asymmetrical and probably smaller than most girls want on their engagement rings, but Roxy has always liked things with a jagged, subtle sort of beauty.
She still seems to be at a total loss for words, and I guess itismy job to speak in this situation. I haven’t planned anything. My heart is beating so fast it’s all I can hear, but I can’t just throw the ring at her and hope for the best, so I give making an actual proposal a shot.
“Roxanne.” Her name is heavy on my tongue. I clear my throat and continue. “Roxanne, this is a promise. I’d say this is a promise to love you, but I’ve already made enough of those. I’ve always loved you, but this is a promise to do more than that. This is a promise to respect you. To listen to you. To accept you. This is a promise to stand with you, to jump in the ring beside you even when there’s no chance for us to win. This is a promise to be your family and your friend. This is a promise to work for you, and with you, and never against you. I’m not going to tell you I can’t be without you, or that my life has no meaning if you’re not in it. I used to think that’s what being in love meant, but it’s not. Those kind of feelings, they just trap people, and love—I mean real love...Love is a choice. Love is looking at every possible reality and choosing the one you want most. So with this ring, I’m promising to choose you. I’m asking if you’ll choose me back. Roxanne Nadeau, will you marry me?”
She just stares, and for a few heart-stopping seconds, I think she’s going to say no. She looks completely petrified. She’s still got a hand clamped over her mouth, and as I search her wild, nearly panicked gaze, I start to wonder if this was all a mistake.
Then something shifts. Something softens, and her hands come to rest on either side of my face. She pulls me towards her and leans in close until our foreheads are touching and her breath is warm on my lips. She’s got her eyes closed, squeezed tight with emotion, but I keep mine open, watching her.
“Read my mind,” she whispers.
And then she smiles.
I slide the ring onto her finger just as her mouth meets mine.
