Gently, he pries my hands away from my face.
“Ella?” he says, his words hardly a whisper.
I’m still crying when I throw my arms around his neck, still crying when he says, a little nervously—
“Sweetheart, I really need to know if this means yes or no—”
“Yes,” I cry, slightly hysterical. “Yes. Yes to everything with you. Yes to forever with you.Yes.”
Warner
Is this joy?
I think it might kill me.
“Aaron?”
“Yes, love?”
She takes my face in her hands and kisses me, kisses me with a love so deep it releases my brain from its prison. My heart starts beating violently.
“Ella,” I say. “You’re going to be my wife.”
She kisses me again, crying again, and suddenly I don’t recognize myself. I don’t recognize my hands, my bones, my heart. I feel new. Different.
“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you so much.”
“That you could love me at all seems like some kind of miracle.”
She smiles, even as she shakes her head. “That’s ridiculous,” she says. “It’s very, very easy to love you.”
And I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to respond.
She doesn’t seem to mind.
I reel her in, kiss her, again, and lose myself in the taste and feel of her, in the fantasy of what we might have. What we might be. And then I pull her gently onto my lap andshe straddles my body, settling over me until we’re pressed together, her cheek against my chest. I wrap my arms around her, spread my hands along her back. I feel her gentle breaths on my skin, her eyelashes tickling my chest as she blinks, and I decide I’m never, ever leaving this bed.
A happy, wonderful silence settles between us.
“You asked me to marry you,” she says softly.
“Yes.”
“Wow.”
I smile, my heart filled suddenly with inexpressible joy. I hardly recognize myself. I can’t remember the last time I ever smiled this much. I can’t recall ever feeling this kind of pure, unburdened bliss.
Like my body might float away without me.
I touch her hair, gently. Run my fingers through the soft, silky strands. When I finally sit up, she sits up, too, and she blushes as I stare at her, mesmerized by the sight of her. Her eyes are wide and bright. Her lips full and pink. She’s perfect, perfect here, bare and beautiful in my arms.
I press my forehead to the curve of her shoulder, my lips brushing against her skin. “I love you, Ella,” I whisper. “I will love you for the rest of my life. My heart is yours. Please don’t ever give it back to me.”
She says nothing for what feels like an eternity.
Finally, I feel her move. Her hand touches my face.
“Aaron,” she whispers. “Look at me.”
