Page 119 of Panty Dropper

“Yes, I do.”

“That’s impossible. You can’t love me because you don’t know me.”

“I know you. We’ve been together for eight years. We’ve lived together for four.”

“Okay, fine. What’s my favorite color?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Your favorite color? I don’t know. Why does that matter?”

“Because it does. What is my favorite color?”

“Pink,” he guessed.

“What time do I wake up every morning?”

“Six, when the alarm goes off,” he said confidently.

“You mean when your alarm goes off.” I corrected. “What am I most scared of?”

“Spiders. You don’t like spiders.”

“Have I ever asked you to kill a spider for me?”

“No, but no one likes spiders.”

“What was the worst day of my life?”

“The day you walked into my office and saw me…”

He didn’t finish his sentence but I knew what he was referring to.

“No. You didn’t get one of those right. And you know what? It’s not your fault. I didn’t let you see me, not the real me. And you know what else? If you asked me the same things about you, I wouldn’t know the answers either. We don’t love each other because we don’t know each other. Not really.”

“So what? My parents don’t love each other and they’ve been together for forty years,” he argued. “You don’t have to be in love to be married.”

“Maybe you don’t. But I do.”

As I said the words that I’d thought I’d be saying at the end of an aisle, not during a breakup, I knew that the only way I would ever say them in the original context was if Billy was standing in front of me.

---