“Me and Jordan come back about once a year,” he says as he slowly guides her through the front entrance of the stadium. The is not another person anywhere in sight, and their footsteps seem to echo eerily against the pavement.
“It always made me sick coming back here,” he confesses in a hushed tone, causing her to squeeze his hand in support. “WhichI feel awful about because this school gave so much to me when I gave it so little, you know? But being back here was like being haunted by you. At least in Kansas City I could get some sort of relief because I felt like I was so far away from everything that happened. But here, Tess?”
His voice turns shaky again as they continue to walk into the stadium hand in hand, her eyes darting around at all the familiar signs, shops, and seating sections that once were so familiar.
“Here I couldn’t escape you. It was like you left your scent in the air and it would suffocate me. And I hated that I couldn’t come back here without feeling crazy.”
“I’m so sorry, Trist,” she whispers, unable to look at him. “For what it’s worth, I was never able to come back here. I was barely even able to let my mind wander towards my life with you here without having a breakdown.”
A sad chuckle escapes her and Tristan stops abruptly.
Tessa looks up at him and sees nothing but love and admiration shining from his green eyes, and she immediately relaxes.
“So then let’s turn this place from a sad memory to a happy one. How does that sound?”
Her blue eyes glitter up at him and she bites her lip in anticipation, her breath coming out in short, excited spurts.
“Yeah, okay.”
Tristan takes her hand again and pulls her though a long corridor, and she quickly recognizes that they are on the ground level and that he’s leading her towards the field. The same field that she watched him play so many times and the same field where he brought her on their first date.
Her stomach twists into knots thinking about how her own choices had to turn such amazing moments and memories between them into something sour, but then her breath hitches when the field comes into view, and her feet nearly freeze.Tristan has to keep urging her forward, his carefree laugh echoing off the walls as he looks at her face filled with shock and awe.
On the large football field were easily thousands of candles, the turf scattered with countless roses, and a soft glow illuminating from the impossibly high ceiling, draping the space in a soft glow perfectly accompanied by the flickering lights of the candles.
“Tristan,” she breaths, her hand coming up to her mouth.
Tristan only smiles at her, carefully maneuvering her around the candles on the field until they come to stand in the center.
He takes her small hands in his and leans down to kiss her, her trembling lips welcoming his as a small tear escapes from her eye.
She looks around one more time, taking a deep breath, and then smiling up at him. She can tell he’s just on the edge of saying something to her but is taking a second to collect his thoughts. So she stands patiently with a rapidly beating heart, memorizing his face in this moment, making sure she remembers every detail so she can tell their kids one day.
“Tessa,” he starts, the emotion evident in his voice. “I was just a kid when I first fell in love with you. I didn’t know anything about life or about myself. I didn’t know how to properly nurture a relationship with a girl as incredible as you and I certainly didn’t know how to make good choices. But what I did know, without a shadow of a doubt, was that you were it for me. That I didn’t need anything or anyone else. And when I lived without you, I searched for you in every single place and every single person I encountered. I was wandering around, aimlessly, Tessa. Just an empty shell of a man trying to distract myself with football and friends and meaningless women and making money. But I was so goddamn empty inside without you.”
Tessa reaches up to wipe his tears away before giving him a reassuring smile, letting him know that she’s listening, present, and supportive.
“Never once did I think I’d have you again,” he says quietly. A few moments pass as he sniffles and gathers himself again. “I thought I’d be punished to a life where I was either alone or I’d marry someone that I didn’t love. And I always thought about you living your life, moving on, happy, men tripping over their feet to get to you, and it made me sick with envy and grief.”
“Oh Trist,” she breaths, clutching at his hands as tears pour down her face.
“I don’t know what the fuck I did that made the universe have any kind of mercy on me to bring you back to me, but I will spend every single second of the rest of my life loving you. I swear to you, Tessa, I will be so fucking good to you. I will take care of you, protect you, support you, encourage you – whatever you need baby, it’s yours. All I ask, Tess…all that I ask…”
Tessa gasps and takes a step back as Tristan gets down on one knee, reaching back into his pocket and pulling out a black velvet box. He turns it in his hands playfully, taking a few moments to smile up at her and really take in the look of shock and pure joy on her face. Slowly, he pulls the box open and reveals a stunning ring that makes her knees weak. She wipes furiously at her eyes so she can get a good look at it through her tears, and a sob escapes as she sees a ring so perfect and so uniquely her that it makes her heart split open.
“All I ask baby, is that you marry me. Is that you be my wife and the mother of my children. That you be my partner in life and go through all the stages of the rest of our lives together.”
She smiles and nods, reaching out a shaky hand towards the ring, being so drawn to it’s beauty that she feels like she needs to touch it.
He chuckles and takes the ring out, placing it onto her finger, and another happy sob escapes her lips.
“How’s about it, Tess?” hse asks with a smile. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes!” She says, clutching her hand to her chest. “Yes of course I’ll marry you!”
He immediately rises to his feet and wraps his arms around her, picking her up off the ground and twirling her around before placing her back down and bringing his lips to hers in a kiss so possessive and filled with promises that she feels like she might faint.
That is, until she hears commotion coming from behind her and whips around to see her closest family and friends, and then her knees actually do buckle.
