Chapter Fourteen #3
All year, Rose had been waiting for the other shoe to drop—for her dissatisfaction with her life to bleed into dissatisfaction with her relationship.
But it hadn’t. If anything, it had proven to her that Landon had something she desperately needed: unwavering faith in her abilities. “That helped,” she said. “A little.”
“Good,” he said. “Can I convince you to come out from under the covers, just for a minute?”
“That’s going to be a hard sell.”
“I have a surprise.”
She squinted. “A good surprise?”
“I think so.”
“You’re not sure if it’s good or bad?”
“You’re going to need to tell me.”
If nothing else, he’d piqued her curiosity. “Fine,” she said. “But if this ends up being a bad surprise, just know it’s all your fault when I wallow for the entire weekend.”
“Noted,” he said. “Give me a minute, before you come out?”
“Landon, I swear to God, if it’s a puppy, I am going to kill you.”
“I feel like a puppy would be an unambiguously good surprise.”
“Landon!”
“Okay,” he said, brushing his fingers along her cheekbones. “You’ll wait a minute?”
“Yes.” Landon placed a light kiss on her lips and rolled out from under the covers. “You’re not usually this mysterious,” Rose said.
“And you’re usually nosier,” he shot back. “I did not think you were actually going to wait.”
Rose rolled her eyes and poked her head up and out of her sadness cave. “You’re—” she began, then gasped.
While she’d lain in the dark, Landon had transformed her room into a fairy glade.
White rose petals peppered the floor with no clear pattern, as a flower girl might toss them from a basket.
He’d strung delicate string lights—surrounded her bed with them—and pasted glowing stars to the ceiling, like the ones in her childhood bedroom that had seen their first I love yous.
Candles flickered on top of the mini fridge.
What is this, she wanted to say, but her hummingbird heart would not allow it.
The soft lighting made Landon look both years younger and older than he was: in one flicker, a hopeful boy; the next, a confident man.
He leaned down and sat on the floor beside her. “Do you like it?” he asked.
Rose nodded, her every synapse alight.
“I’ve been thinking about this for months,” Landon said.
The candles flickered: boy, man. “Thinking about how to do it, what to say to you. But, Rose, I’ve known since the day I met you—” He paused.
“From the day I met you, I knew this was different. That you were different. You don’t have to believe in yourself right now, because I can do that for the both of us until you’re ready.
But believe, Rose, that I want to spend whatever comes next with you.
I love you now, for everything you were, are, and will be.
” Landon pulled a red velvet box from his pocket. The hinge gave way with a soft click.
“Oh my God,” Rose breathed, finally. “Oh my God, Landon.”
“This was my grandmother’s,” he said, plucking the ring from its cushion.
It was like no ring Rose had ever seen, with a deep blue sapphire at its center, its surface smooth and polished.
When the light hit it just right, a perfect six-pointed star flickered into view.
“She loved my grandfather for sixty years. This ring has seen so much joy, but it’s also seen belt tightening, and fights, and loss.
If you don’t like it, I will buy you any ring you want—we can go together and pick one out, or you could design something.
But if you do like it…” He paused, his eyes searching hers.
“Oh God, I’m rambling. I haven’t even said the thing yet. ”
The thing. Rose sat up straight. She held her breath.
“Rose Amelia Martin. Will you marry me?”
Marriage.
Husband and wife.
A life together.
She’d known it was coming, but so soon? Here? Today?
Tick, tick, tick.
She could feel him waiting for her answer like his nerves had grown sentient.
She looked down at the ring clutched between his pointer finger and thumb.
The star was gone one minute, there the next.
She thought of what she’d lost. Then she thought about Landon.
Landon, who had always seen her for exactly who she wanted to be, who made her laugh at all the right and wrong times, who celebrated her every achievement as though they were his own, who had such an old soul she wondered sometimes whether they had already met.
When she was a girl and had fallen asleep in the car, her body felt the last three familiar turns, heard the car pull up on familiar gravel.
Being with Landon felt like that. Even half asleep, her body would always know it was home.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes!” she yelled. She thrust herself at him, overcome with a joy so clear and true she knew she would never experience anything like it again.
“Yes!” he said, kissing her, hands and body shaking. He held Rose by her fingertips and placed the ring with such reverence the moment turned holy. Rose spun her hand back and forth, marveling at the magic trick.
“A little big,” she said.
Landon’s smile could power the city. “Almost perfect.”