Epilogue #2
The elevator hums beneath us, slow and mechanical, as if even the building is listening.
“And I want to keep choosing you,” he continues, voice steady and rich with promise.
“Not just today. Not just in the good moments. But in every fight and every stupid headline. In every early morning snuggle and every late-night panic spiral. I want to choose you in every messy, beautiful, impossible part of our lives.”
He takes a breath, like he’s gathering courage he doesn’t need. “Because everything that matters between us… started right here.”
The elevator slows—just a gentle shift under our feet—but Kyle doesn’t look away. His hand slips into his jacket, and something breaks open inside me, like a door that’s been waiting too long to be touched.
“Alycia,” he whispers, and the way he says my name is a vow all by itself. “I’ve been trying to find the perfect place to do this. I kept thinking it had to be big or romantic or planned. Something worthy of you.”
Something in me shudders open, a tight, breathless stutter of air I can’t quite hold on to.
My chest feels too full, like my heart is trying to press closer to him before I’ve even moved.
The elevator hums beneath us, the world shrinking to the small space between his words and my pulse, and I know that nothing about my life will ever be the same after this breath.
“But the truth is…” He gives a small, almost helpless laugh. “Every moment I’ve ever had with you that mattered happened in the places we didn’t plan. The places we stumbled into. The places where we were just… us.”
The elevator dings softly, and the doors begin to open, but Kyle’s hand flashes out and presses the emergency stop. The door freezes halfway, and a hush settles over us as Kyle pulls a small velvet box from his jacket.
“Alycia Torres…” His voice barely cracks as he opens the box, his eyes shimmering with emotion he doesn’t bother hiding. “Will you marry me?”
He looks at me with a depth that feels like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, and the world holds perfectly, beautifully still.
For a moment, I can’t breathe because everything inside me recognizes this moment, like my heart lived its whole life waiting for the shape of his voice in this elevator, saying my name like future and promise and something sacred.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out except the smallest, cracked whisper. “Kyle…”
His name dissolves on my tongue, carrying every version of the woman I’ve been, and I hear all of them in that single breath.
“Alycia…” He steps toward me slowly, like he’s walking into church. “Say something. Please.”
But I can’t because there’s a look on his face I’ve never seen before.
A mixture of devotion, fear, joy, and something so fierce it steals every piece of air left in my lungs.
He’s holding the ring as if he’s holding his entire life in the palm of his hand.
And I realize none of this is a surprise.
Of course, this moment is happening in the place where everything between us cracked open.
I take one shaky step forward, lifting a trembling hand toward his face, fingers barely brushing his jaw. When I touch him, he shudders like he’s been waiting a lifetime for that simple yes.
“Alycia, please tell me you’re with me. Tell me you want this. Tell me you want… us.”
I swallow hard, my thumb tracing the faint stubble along his cheek. He’s warm beneath my touch, unbearably warm, and the softness in his expression almost brings me to my knees.
Then the truth spills out, not loud but honest. “I don’t know how to do any of this without you.”
“I’m here. I’m always right here. Always.” He lowers his forehead to mine, whispering against my skin. “Marry me.”
The words settle over me like a promise I never thought I’d get to hear as a breath stumbles out of me, and I finally find my voice. “Yes.”
Kyle freezes in relief so powerful it looks like it nearly buckles his knees. “Yes?”
“Yes,” I say again, firmer now, fuller. “Kyle Hendrix, I will marry you.”
He makes a sound, a deep, guttural exhale that feels like it’s been waiting eighteen months to escape.
And before I can say another word, his mouth is on mine.
It’s a collision—messy, breathless, hungry—with the full force of every emotion we’ve carried, every moment we’ve survived, and every truth we’ve finally stopped running from.
His hand cups the back of my neck, drawing me closer until our bodies are pressed together, the ring box wedged between us.
I gasp against his mouth, and he swallows the sound like it belongs to him.
The elevator hums around us, small and warm and suddenly too full of everything we are.
He breaks the kiss only long enough to frame my face in both hands, eyes shining in a way that makes something inside me break beautifully.
“I love you,” he says, voice rough. “God, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it.”
“I love you,” I whisper, brushing my lips against his.
His eyes soften with something reverent. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
“You keep kissing me like that, and you’ll never find out how fast I can completely fall apart in your hands.”
“Oh, I already know,” he whispers, and his mouth finds mine again, and we sink into each other, tasting laughter and tears, the slide of breath, the pull of something vast and permanent settling between us.
By the time he pulls back, I’m trembling. He presses a kiss to my forehead, then my cheek, then the corner of my mouth. “Hold still and let me do this right.”
He slips the ring from the box, his fingers brushing mine as he slides it onto my hand. It fits perfectly, like it’s always belonged there. I look down at my hand, breathing unevenly.
“Oh my God.”
“Say you like it.” Kyle watches my expression of awe, softening every line of his face.
“I love it,” I whisper, leaning up and kissing him again.
When I pull back, he cups my jaw, brushing his thumb over my cheek.
“You know,” I murmur, voice unsteady but full of a heat I can’t quite hide, “this is going to cost you.”
“Cost me?”
“Mm-hmm.” I tap his chest with one trembling finger, trying to regain even a shred of composure. “Fifty bucks.”
For a heartbeat, Kyle just stares at me, and then he laughs in the way that always makes my knees go weak.
“Fifty bucks,” he repeats, stepping closer, sliding his hands around my waist with a reverence that contradicts the teasing edge in his voice. “Best fifty dollars I’ve ever spent.”
The elevator suddenly lurches—the emergency stop disengaging on its own—and the doors slide open. Kyle takes my hand, lacing our fingers together as he whispers, “Ready?”
“Not even a little,” I whisper back.
“Good,” he murmurs. “We’ll do it together.”
For a second, all I register is the shift in air, charged with something that feels like it’s already reaching for me. And then the sound rolls in like a rising wave of voices, chaotic joy filling the room before I even understand why.
Kyle steps out beside me, his hand sliding to the small of my back as if he knows my legs have forgotten how to work. I follow him into the light, and the sight waiting there stops me so completely I feel my pulse stutter. The entire family is gathered right there in the hallway.
Cooper with an arm around Ramona, both of them grinning like they’ve been holding this secret for months.
Beau and Alise stand shoulder-to-shoulder, her head leaning against his as she wipes at mascara that never stood a chance.
Michele and Cole are pressed together in that easy, unshakable way they always fall into, both clapping hard enough to bruise their palms. Ms. Mel stands at the center of all of them, tissue in hand, pretending she’s not crying even though her eyes are shining like she’s seeing something she prayed for.
Kyle barely has time to breathe before Ms. Mel pulls him into the kind of hug only a mother can give, swatting the back of his head and crying into his shoulder. “’Bout time you did something right,” she sobs, and he laughs into her hair.
Behind her, my own mother appears, flanked by Tiff and Maria on either side of her. Both are openly crying and filming everything.
My mom grabs my face with both hands. “Alycia… look at you. Mira lo que Dios te dio.”
She gives my cheeks a small squeeze before hugging Kyle, whispering something in his ear that makes his eyes go wide and his ears go red.
Behind them, a handful of teammates slam their sticks against the ice, the thud reverberating through the glass. Draped across the hall leading to my office in Cooper’s unmistakably terrible handwriting is a banner stretched wide and crooked: “SHE SAID YES!”
I choke on a laugh, burying my face in Kyle’s shoulder before the tears spill. He wraps an arm around my waist, pressing a kiss into my hair. “Told you that you were never alone.”
“We’re really doing this?” I ask softly.
He nods, brushing his nose against mine. “We’re doing all of it, together.”
And for the first time in my life, I believe it with my whole heart.
Thank you for reading Line Change from Myself!