A Perfect Crystal Memory

My head is reeling, I feel like my chest is tight and both like I am wide awake and not awake at all. She said yes! She fucking said yes! I’m engaged! Sunrise, we woke before sunrise, sleep evading each of us for different reasons. I struggle to think of the perfect way to bring it up, my stomach dropping every few minutes when I think of my task ahead. She scrolls through her phone for a few minutes when I stare blankly out trying desperately just to shut my eyes and think of sleep. The bed creaks as she turns towards me and I feel her weight shift as the warm glow of her gaze falls upon me. Into the early morning darkness she says “Well, we have until 7:20”. I crack an eye open and say “for what?,her response comes quick “for the sun to rise baby, wanna go watch the sunrise on the beach?” And there it is, perfect and spontaneous everything I have ever wanted is before me asking with a slightly corked grin if I would like to go with her to the beach. As with everything in her presence I don’t have to try, she is always there, within reach, warm and willing.

“Grab your gift” I remind her just before we head out the door. I feel numb all the way down to my toes.

The beach is something out of a young teen novel, a coastal town with small waves that lap at the the shoreline more than they crash. The sky brighter for its reflecting off the water makes it seem as though we’ve missed sunrise. We reach the waters edge and place our stolen throw blanket down to shield us from the sand. We talk of nothing, muse about the beauty before us. My heart is a cold knob sunken to the pit of my stomach. Methodically I remove my gloves and focus on taking one long deep breath. As the icy morning air fills my lungs I reach into my coat pocket and feel the hard curves of her ring box, the hot coal of all my dreams, both frozen and molten in the palm of my hand.

“Okay baby,” I breathe, “ you can open your present now.” The words feel like ghosts in my mouth, transparent and otherworldly.  I request that she face me and tell her she has to hand me the contents, my vow to her written in shaky ink crammed tight onto scrapbook paper. She passes me the box, open, staring at my face. I can’t keep my hands from shaking as I reach for the contents.  I feel tears pricking my eyes, emotion welling up before I even pass the first line.

“Kris,” I begin, “I’ve told you at least a thousand times that I love you...” each line is a floating cloud far above us. Like those dreams I have of swimming deep to the sea bottom, I catch glimpses of her face through the blur of tears rolling down my cheeks. My heart disloadges from the bottom of my stomach and now resides high in my throat, choking me, making my voice shake to match the quaking in my hands. Finally I look into her amber eyes, warmed from the now risen sun cresting above the waters horizon, and ask the only question I’ve been asking over and over again silently to myself but this time it isn’t secretly.

 “Will you be my life partner and marry me?”  The words echo in my ears as though shouted from the end of a long cavern, I blink tears from my eyes and catch her answer, small and glittering, a perfect mirror to the tears catching the light as they spill past her dark eyelashes “Yes” I blink again almost not believing my own ears. Static buzzes, high pitched and loud. I feel my face fight for an expression.

I could be struck by a plane, a falling debris of some forgotten satellite, a large wave could come and sweep me away and I would still be smiling. Everything I want is in front of me, beautiful and clear in the early morning light. And just like that, with the freshly risen sun, I am engaged to the most kind, beautiful, loving woman I have ever known. I’m floating far above us, watching young lovers embrace and cry on the sandy floor.

 “Yes”. A perfect word spoken from perfect lips, an endless echo to match the pounding of my heart, “Yes.”

I will keep this perfect memory till the day I die.

 She is going to be my wife!

Nena