As we came to an intersection, William took a right and I smiled. I knew exactly where he was taking me.
In the dark, our tree stood black and elegant against the navy sky. William slowed and then stopped, pushing down the kickstand of his bicycle and then waiting patiently as I did the same.
The grass was damp and I worried for a moment how it would look if I turned up on base, my backside wet with dew, but William didn’t sit, he merely leaned against the tree’s trunk and pulled me to him.
“I remember the first moment I saw you,” he said and I chuckled.
“No, you don’t,” I said. “You were too woozy from pain and blood loss.”
He grinned and pinched my backside playfully.
“That came later,” he said. “You weren’t paying attention to me, you were too busy doing your job. And boy, were you beautiful as you looked so seriously down at the tag attached to my shirt before giving me a brief smile and moving on to the next guy.”
My mouth opened but I had no words. I was embarrassed to admit he was right. I barely had recollection of him outside the plane, just his name and injuries. The first time I remember really noticing him was when I checked on him midflight, and then of course when I realized he was bleeding and I had to stitch him up.
“It’s okay,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I loved watching you without you knowing. I’d never seen a woman so focused on her job. So efficient and caring and knowledgeable. You were like an angel in that field, and then on the plane, moving from patient to patient, administering medications and bandages, making conversation, squeezing a hand, feeling foreheads. And the way you weren’t bothered by those Jerries...”
I shrugged. “I’m no different than any of the other women out here doing the same.”
But he shook his head. “But you are. You care so deeply. I can see it in your eyes when you’re tending to your patients. I can see it in the way you look after your friends when they come in from a shift. You’re kind and strong. You make me laugh. You listen when I’m frustrated about not being out there, fighting beside my brothers. And even though you didn’t want to love me. Even though it scared you. You did it anyways. In a way I’ve never been loved before. And I promise you now, I will never love anyone the way I love you.”
We were both silent, his words hanging between us.
“I was only a little bit serious on that plane,” he said. “But I’m very serious now.”
He stood upright then, causing me to take a step or two back as he pulled something from his pocket and held it out to me.
“I swore to myself I wouldn’t get involved while I was over here fighting. Not even a fling. It wasn’t worth it to me to feel or cause heartache like that. But the moment I saw you I knew the universe had sent me a challenge. And when you came to check on me in the base hospital, well...that sealed the deal. I was smitten. But now... Now I’m in love. And so I have to ask, my wounds healed, no blood leaving my body, Kate Campbell, will you marry me?”
Marriage was not something I’d ever considered in my short life. I’d grown up listening to my parents scheme and shame and feed off one another’s ugliness, causing me to decide my life would have a purpose larger than finding “the one.” And no matter that I’d later had a wonderful example of what marriage could be from my aunt and uncle and then watched my high school friends fall in love and proclaim how lovely and wonderful it was to find “the one,” I’d decided it wasn’t in the cards for me. I’d find a different path.
And so when boys asked me out, I pointed them to Janie or Claire, offering them up as an alternative. When I was approached in pubs or the library or the hall of the hospital where I volunteered, I politely shook my head and returned my gaze to whatever chart I’d been poring over.
But then I met William. And suddenly all the reasons I’d had for not falling for someone fell away, and left in their place was a stark and beautiful truth.
I loved him.
Where before I might have dissected the how and why of it, I found I didn’t care to now. I just wanted to feel it. To allow it. To revel in it and him and us. I wasn’t curious. I didn’t need to study it. It just was. An absolute. And I wanted more of it.
“Yes,” I whispered, and then grinned as his face lit up, my heart feeling like it might burst out of my chest as he opened the box he’d held out to me and slipped a ring on my finger.
“I’ll come by the field hospital whenever I’m near to see if you’re around,” William said, wiping a tear from my cheek. “And I’ll write.”
We were standing around the corner from the airfield, savoring every second we had left before he had to go.
I nodded. “And I’ll see about getting a few days off.”
Our plans were tentative. Getting letters to one another would be simple enough, but spending time together would prove more difficult. He had no idea when he’d be eligible for leave, but when he was, he would fly back to England and we’d stay in our usual room at the little hotel we’d found and made ours in town.
I could feel the time ticking down, each second a beat of my heart, the sound filling my ears as I stared up at him and he looked down at me, his eyes moving over my face as I tried to memorize every detail of his.
I ran my fingers through his soft brown hair, taking in his lightly tanned skin, faded-blue-jean eyes, and the lips I’d already kissed at least a couple hundred times. Smoothing my palm across his jaw, I breathed in the scent of him, filling my lungs, holding him there, before breathing him out and melting into him.
He wrapped his arms around me and I wished that somehow I could merge my body with his. To be part of him. To never have to leave him.
“If only there was some kind of magic,” I said and he held me tighter, his chest rising and falling against mine.
“I think perhaps there is,” he said, and I looked up. “Because there’s no other explanation for you saying you’ll marry me.”
