Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Too wild. Too untamed. Too euphoric and happy and pink.
And too fucking wonderful to be contained within my rib cage.
“I didn’t ask yet,” he says, his features flashing with amusement.
“But I’ll marry you anyway.”
“Yeah?”
“God yes.”
“So then, you gotta chill and let me ask, Bubblegum.”
I press both hands to my cheeks, trying to chill. “Okay, yeah. Right. Sorry.”
He takes another few seconds to study me, my breathless form in a pink peacoat, my honey-blonde hair tied up in the kind of intricate braid that he likes.
And of course, my blushing cheeks.
Those, he takes in for the longest time and with the gravest of expressions.
Then, “I bought this ring,” he fishes one out of his pocket, “four months ago. The day I decided to believe. The day I came to see you. And I’ve been carrying it around in my pocket since then. I sleep with it. I eat with it. I write about it in my diary every night. I even bring it to practice and put it in my locker because I can’t… I can’t bear the thought of ever being apart from it. I can’t bear the thought of it disappearing when I’m not looking. I guess I have this crazy notion that this ring is somehow you. That I’ll blink and you’ll disappear. That these past months would turn out to be a dream. Well, they’ve been a dream. Better than any dream I’ve ever had but yeah. I…”
Then, staring down at the ring, he says, “All I know is that I want you to wear my ring. I’ve wanted you to wear it for a very long time now, probably way before I bought it. But every time I thought about giving it to you, I thought it wasn’t enough. The words I’d planned to say. Or the moment I’d planned to do it in. Or just the fact that I haven’t fully showed you yet, all the things that we can be together. All the ways I can love you or cherish you or be the kind of a boyfriend you deserve. But fuck it, yeah? Because I figure if you wear my ring, I could show it to you for the rest of our lives. So even though everything that I’ve just said is not enough, this moment isn’t enough, and I’ve got a ways to go, I want you to have this ring.”
He looks up then, his eyes liquid and his face vulnerable. “Because I’m insane for you. I’m obsessed with you. You’re the life in my veins and you’re the thing I crave more than air. I’m sick for you, Echo, and I want you to marry me. Will you?”
At this point, I’m just crying.
I’m bawling and I realize that I was wrong.
I didn’t ruin the moment.
Because he just saved it.
With his beautiful words and beautiful face and beautiful soul.
And I’m proven right — that he saved the moment — when suddenly I’m in his arms. And I’m drenching his hoodie in my tears as he rocks me back and forth. And when I still don’t calm down, he does the only thing that will get me to chill, that will lull me into submission.
He kisses me.
He puts his soft and warm mouth on me and drugs me with it. And again, it feels like we keep kissing for years and years as the world passes around us.
Coming up for air, I whisper, hiccupping, “You’re right.”
He frames my face with rough hands. “About what?”
I hiccup again. “I’m a drama queen.”
He plants a hard but sweet kiss on my lips. “You’re my drama queen.”
“I totally ruined your hoodie.”
“All my hoodies are yours to ruin.”
I sink my fingers in his hair. “I can’t believe you’ve been carrying around a ring for four months now.”
“This was the only thing keeping me sane and you safe.”
“Safe from what?”
His eyes flash. “From me kidnapping you and taking you away.”
“Like a bandit.”
“Yeah,” he whispers, his fingers buried in my hair and flexing. “And forcing you to marry me.”
“You don’t have to force me.”
His lips twitch. “No?”
I bring my hand away from his hair and put it on his chest. Looking down at it, I whisper, “Do it.”
He glances down as well, and untangling his fingers from my hair, he goes ahead and does it.
Puts his ring on my finger.
I bring it closer, staring down at it with all the love in my heart. A solitaire diamond sitting in the midst of tiny ones on a silver ring.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“Yeah.”
I look up and find him watching me and I know he isn’t talking about the ring, as always.
And I realize, yet again, that I was right.
While I was hell bent on staying at NYU and feeling trapped when Lucas had asked me the same question, now all I feel like is throwing my hands open and laughing with joy. Now all I feel is this crazy urge to jump up and down and fly like a free bird.