88. Chapter Eighty-Eight
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Elowen Drewitt
Oslo, Norway - Under the Aurora Borealis
The world feels impossibly wide under that sky.
We left the tour group near a ridge where the trees thinned and the horizon spread like an unrolled map.
The guide had pointed out constellations and the path the lights might take.
He smiled politely when Beau asked a question, then fell back with the others, giving us space. He acted like it was a signal? Odd.
The air bites at my cheeks, but doesn’t pain me. My forced breath comes out in tiny clouds that vanish into the dark. It fascinates me. Everything feels sharper tonight. Every sound, every color, every small movement is exaggerated and bright. Maybe, I’m just happy.
Beau takes my gloved hand and leads me a few more paces away from the rest. The frozen ground crunches beneath our boots.
I feel his fingers through the leather and the steadiness of his touch anchors me.
Up here, away from lights and noise, the sky moves like liquid.
Bands of green slide and pool, then flare into curtains of pale violet and blue.
It’s like watching the earth think, like watching something ancient and wild unfurl itself just for us.
The guide speaks in a low voice away from us, something about solar wind and magnetic fields.
His words are small against the roar of the night.
I barely register what he’s saying. I can only stare.
My hands tremble, though Beau holds them and doesn’t falter.
I feel ridiculous for being this rattled.
I’ve survived what felt like a hundred small deaths, and yet I can’t stop my knees from wanting to buckle in the face of something beautiful.
The sight is overwhelming. I wish Grandma was here to see it with me.
Beau guides me further out to a small clearing where the ground is more bare. He stops and turns to me slowly. His face is thinly lit by the sky. His eyes are more vibrant than the night, yet softer than normal.
“Do you trust me?” he asks, voice low like a benediction.
The question is unnecessary, but scares me just the same.
“Always,” I manage. He drops to one knee on the ground without hesitation.
I glance to the sky then back to him. He only looks at me like he’s been waiting to do this forever.
He removes his gloves before pulling something small and black from his backpack.
The black case in his hands is almost obscene in the light.
It looks like a small coffin. He holds it gently, as if it contains a promise, not a thing.
The letters across the side catch the shifting green and flash.
B + E. He opens the case and the ring gleams at me.
It’s a teardrop shape, a halo of small diamonds cradling a single stone that trembles with its own light.
It looks like a piece of captured sky, reflecting the colors of the sky off it.
Time stretches, but speeds at the same time.
I feel like I may pass out if he doesn’t speak again soon.
The aurora bows and waves above us, a ceiling of moving color.
His voice comes next, steady and careful, and every syllable lands loud and clear.
“Elowen.” He breathes my name with reverence.
“From the moment I first laid eyes on you and you scolded me to try to warn me from stealing your car, I have been undone.” He pauses, eyes never leaving mine.
“You are the light I never knew I needed. You are the argument I cannot win and the peace I did not know I sought. You have taught me to laugh out loud in a world that taught me only to survive in misery.”
He draws the ring from the case with a gentle motion and continues, “I have fought law and hunger and the small cruelties of time, but there is nothing I will not bargain with to keep you here. I will choose you every century if that’s what it takes.
I promise to hold you when the nights are long, to be the warmth you find when the world is cold, and to make you laugh until it hurts.
I promise to be stupid with you, to be brave for you, and to fail sometimes so you can teach me to be better.
I will even willingly listen to your long winded rants about whatever book you are reading. ”
A laugh escapes me that’s really a half-sob, and he smiles like the world itself has finally given him what he wanted. I can feel the people in the tour murmur softly, respectful like they are at the edge of witnessing something holy.
”I had never fallen in love until you came along.
There are no words that can truly fathom the depth of how madly, obsessively, and endlessly I yearn for your presence.
You’re a gift.” He swallows and the sky shifts as if in answer.
He says the next words slowly, each one a little offering.
“Will you marry me, Elowen Lise Briar? Will you be my wife, from now till the world decides that it no longer needs us?”
My insides feel like they’ve been turned into liquid. I jump up and down. I can’t stop myself. I leap up and down like a fool. The whole world reduces to a bright, everything yes. My voice rises and breaks the hush,” Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes!”
Beau laughs then, a sound that’s almost a sob.
He rises and pulls the ring out as I remove my gloves.
He closes the case with one hand and throws it back in his bag, holding the ring in one hand.
He slides the ring onto my hand and pulls me into him and kisses me hard, under the sky that had been just mine in a letter and was now our reality, together.
When he breaks the kiss he smiles, tired and pleased.
“Fantastic,” he says. His voice holds mischief even as it trembles.
“Because the paperwork is ready for a signature if you want to seal this for eternity, mi tesoro.” I look around to see the tour guide standing next to us with a stack of papers and a pen.
I kiss him again beneath the lights, and the aurora wraps itself around us like a promise.
The sky moves and we move with it, two small people in a vast world that has suddenly made room for us.
When we finally let go of each other we stand quiet for a moment, the cold settling deeper into our bones.
I press my hand to the ring and feel the weight of its truth.
We quickly fill out all the paperwork and have it sealed with words from the tour guide who apparently is also an ordained minister.
My head buzzes with a million small joyous shocks.
I look at Beau and see my life reflected in the light of his eyes.
I have never felt more certain of anything.
I wrap my arms around him and rest my head against his chest, listening to him sigh in relief as if his whole future depended on me saying yes.
“Yes,” I whisper again into the hollow of his neck. He kisses the top of my head and we stand there until the colors fade into the slow, honest blue of pre-dawn.