But you're still not off the hook for waiting this long to ask her father's permission.
I grinned. I'd asked Rosie's dad for his blessing last month during our Christmas visit. He'd made me sweat for a full ten minutes before laughing and saying he'd been expecting it.
Rosie called her parents, then her friends, and soon our phones were blowing up with congratulations. But we ignored them, choosing instead to stay in our studio, in our future, in this perfect moment.
"We should probably add a wedding charm to your bracelet," Derek said, touching the silver band around my wrist. It had accumulated several charms over the past two years, including a graduation cap, a tiny studio, a therapy couch, and a soccer ball with a small crack to represent healing.
"And eventually, maybe some others," Rosie said shyly. "Like... baby booties? When we're ready. In like, five years."
"Five years sounds perfect." I kissed her. "Everything with you sounds perfect."
As the sun set through the studio windows, casting long shadows across the space, we sat on the floor, planning our future. The wedding, the business launch, the life we were building together.
It wasn't the life either of us had planned when we were kids, dreaming of professional careers. It wasn't the life we'd imagined before injuries changed everything.
But it was ours. Built on honesty, resilience, and a love that had grown from shared pain into something beautiful.
"Derek?" Rosie said as we finally locked up the studio for the night.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for taking the shot. For being brave enough to fall for me even when it was complicated."
I pulled her close one more time, right there on the street outside our studio. "Rosebud, falling for you was the easiest thing I've ever done. Everything else, like the fear, the doubt, the worry, that was just noise. You were always the signal."
"That's really poetic for a jock."
"Shut up and kiss me."
She did, there under the streetlights, in front of the business we'd built and the future we'd chosen.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear Dr. Morrison's voice from that first therapy session two years ago:Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit you need help. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is be vulnerable.
He'd been right.
Being vulnerable had led me to Rosie. Being honest had saved my career. Being brave enough to ask for help had given me a future I never could have imagined.
We drove home hand-in-hand, our new shared playlist, now re-titled to "Our Forever,” playing through the speakers. The songs had evolved over the years, from angsty acoustic covers to hopeful love songs to triumphant anthems.
Just like us.
Just like our story.
And as we pulled into the apartment we shared, after Aaron had finally accepted we were adults capable of living together, I realized something profound.
We hadn't just survived our injuries. We'd used them to become better versions of ourselves. To build something meaningful. To help others who were struggling in the same darkness we'd fought through.
Our scars hadn't destroyed us. They'd led us to each other. And to this beautiful, imperfect, perfect life we were creating together.
"Come on, fiancé," Rosie said, breaking me out of my thoughts. "Let's go celebrate."
"How do you want to celebrate?"
She grinned, that beautiful smile that still made my heart skip. "Pain au chocolat and a terrible movie none of us is actually going to watch?”
"You know me so well."
We raced up the stairs to our apartment, both laughing like idiots, both completely and perfectly in love.
