"I want to show you something. Will you walk with me?"
She nods without even hesitating, and she doesn't question me as she slips into her dress and I tug on a pair of jeans. She doesn't even object when I slip my fingers between hers and lead her to the front door— the big glass one she stumbled out of for the last time so soon before her death.
I feel her fingers tighten in mine as I lead her around the building, following the footsteps in the snow that are mostly filled in by now. It's a gentle snowfall; the flakes drift lazily around us, but they cover the tracks that lead out here to where her life ended.
The slightest sliver of dawn is on the horizon, threatening another day.
Our lives may have stopped, but the world hasn't. And as we grow nearer to the spot where hers ended, I realize it's not just the world that hasn't stopped. The musical element from the snow globe lies in the snow, just the tip of it peeking above a fresh blanket of it. As I lift it out of the snow, the sound grows louder. It's distorted, more whiny and less melodic, pausing like it wants to give up before playing for a few more seconds.
Nikki stares at what's left of the snow globe cradled between my hands... my last gift to her. It wasn't meant to be the last, though. It was supposed to be the first gift of the rest of our lives... it's why I had this made for her.
"Noah?" The space between her eyebrows creases as I fiddle with the compartment, searching for the little lever that woulddischarge the center from the snow globe, letting her see what was so special about this gift.
"Do you like the song I chose?" I laugh, tipping the pedestal of the snow globe upside down so that I can get to the compartment more easily.
"I did." She nods when I glance up to grin at her. "But it's a little creepy now..."
"A thousand years." I laugh. "It wouldn't be enough."
"No." She agrees, smiling softly now. "It would be a good start, though."
"So would this." I tell her, brandishing the ring that I'd had tucked away inside the hollow cut out photo of us.
The moonlight is still strong enough to glint off the silver and make the small diamond shine between my fingers.
Nikki gasps.
I had a whole thing planned for this... giving her the gift on Christmas morning with her family crowded around us. I'd planned to be sitting beneath the tree with her in my arms when she opened it, and pretending that there was something wrong with the gift so that I could pull the ring out and drop it into her palm. I'd even imagined what she would say, her confusion, and how her mother would squeal at the mere sight of the ring.
But all of that is gone, taken from us the same way our lives were. So, I guess I can do this the right way.
I drop on one knee, reaching out for her hand. She lets me hold it, using the other one to cover her mouth... exactly how I expected her to.
"Nicolette... I've loved you from the moment I heard you laugh at a joke that wasn't funny... since before I even knew you. And I will love you ‘til the end. ‘Til time stops."
She stares at me with shock on her pretty face, her eyes swimming with tears. "You had that ring there the whole time?"
"A whole year." I nod. "I planned to do this last Christmas, but obviously..." I clear my throat, not wanting to bring up the fact that I never got the chance because I had been murdered.
"You wanted to marry me?"
"I still do." I nod. Of course, marriage would probably look a lot different now, in death. We talked about babies and a dog and the perfect little house and even where we'd have our wedding.
Now those things aren't possibilities for us... but it doesn't mean I can't still love her like my wife. And I do still want to.
"Noah..." She shakes her head the slightest bit, and I don't know if she's answering the question I haven't asked.
"Marry me.” I slip the ring onto her finger, and she admires the glint of it in the moonlight. “It doesn't have to be official to be real."
She stares at me like she's trying to decide what that means. But she knows. Because she knows she died, and she knows that what we did shouldn't have been possible, but it was.
"I wanted nothing more than to marry you..." She swallows, her hand gripping mine softly. "When I was alive."
"Death doesn't have to change us. We can leave this behind and move forward together. We can get back what we lost."
"You mean what was stolen from us." Nikki's voice is hard, cold. "We can't get that back, Noah. We can have something, but we can't have that back."
I stare at her, trying to understand what exactly she's saying. I knew I would marry her from the first date. I planned my proposal no less than fifty times, imagining different scenarios. But I never imagined she would say no.
