“I know,” he says. “You don’t like it?”
“No, Christian, I love it.” I choke up. “It’s perfect, baby.”
“This is just, like, a promise ring,” Christian tells me, his cheeks going pink. “I know it’s small, but?—”
“Christian, I don’t care if it’s small. I wouldn’t care if you wrapped yarn or a straw wrapper around my finger. If it’s from you, I love it. I love you.”
Christian sniffs, wiggling around his nose. “I love you, Lana.”
“I love you,” I say and throw my arms around him. I brush my lips over his and breathe, “Yes.”
Christian gives me a boyish grin.“Yes?”
“Yes. I’ll marry you. In about five to seven years though.”
He chuckles. “Good enough for me.”
“And kids?”
“I didn’t want kids,” Christian murmurs. “But with you, I do. I want everything with you, Lana.”
“We’ll make our own family,” I promise him. “And it’ll be better than the ones we had. Our kids will only know love.”
Christian’s lips flinch before they settle into a frown. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” I urge him onto his back and grab his sunglasses. I kiss his cheek and gently put his sunglasses back on, protecting his beautiful eyes. I settle my hands on his chest and peer down at him. “I think you’re going to be an amazing dad. I think you have one of the best hearts. And I think that if we have kids, you’ll love them with everything you have.”
Christian doesn’t speak, his arms simply wrap around me.
“We have time,” I tell him. “We’re still young.”
“No, I don’t need time,” he says. “I know what I want. Two girls. Big house. We’ll get you a hot mom car?—”
I laugh loudly, the sound echoing through the park. “A hot mom car?”
He shrugs, smiling. “Yeah. An SUV. Like a Range Rover or something.”
I laugh again. “We’re going to be able to afford a Range Rover?”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
I shake my head and kiss him. His tongue slips into my mouth, pulling a soft whimper out of me. The kiss deepens, as all of our kisses do. It’s hard to kiss him without it going further.
Christian rolls me onto my back and growls quietly. “Let’s go home.”
I nod rapidly and gather our things quickly. “Let’s go.”
I said yes to Christian four years ago on his twenty-third birthday. We were so happy, so perfect. I never saw what happened five months later coming.
He just left. We were together for three years and then he left. Just like that. Came to our apartmentdrunk and packed. And by the time I got home, most of his stuff was gone and so was the jar, but the money was left on the table.
He left some of his sweatshirts for me. His sweats, his boxers, the t-shirts he knew I loved to steal from him. He left his cologne on our dresser that I sprayed on his side of the bed for a year.
I wore his Led Zeppelin t-shirt every night. The Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy t-shirt I wore during the day. I wore his washed out, sage green Willow Springs High School hoodie when I went to the gym with Julian because Christian always wore that hoodie to the gym.
Every piece of clothing he left, I sprayed his cologne. Wore it. Cried in public. Cried in the gym when Julian was helping learn leg day workouts. Cried in the supermarket when I saw the cereal he’d binge eat.
He took everything when he left.
