Discussing how you want to be proposed to is probably not the sort of thing you do when you’ve only been dating for a month, but what really strikes me as weird is that it doesn’t feel weird; and Danny obviously doesn’t think so, either, because he doesn’t try to change the subject.
“But how will you post about it on your Instagram?” he teases.
“Hopefully my future fiancé will know me well enough that he’ll set up a camera to film this very sweet, very intimate moment between just the two of us, so I can share it with people later on.”
Danny laughs. “So no marching band and skywriter in front of the Eiffel Tower. Got it.”
“Is that really what you’d want to do?” I ask him. My nose scrunches up before I can stop it.
But his lips curve into a smile against my skin and he kisses my cheek before saying, “No. I think you’re right. It should just be for the two of you. The wedding is when you share it with everybody else, but that proposal? That should be all about us. Or—or not—not, like—not us, like, like you and me, specifically, or—well, not not us, either, but . . . ”
Danny is solid and charming and confident, so it is unbearably endearing when he gets flustered like this. It happens so rarely.
Before this week, I’d only seen him like it once, and that was when he ran into an ex on one of our dates.
I laugh, nudging him with my shoulder. “It’s okay. You can stop now.”
Relieved, he lets out a long sigh and shuts up before he says something more embarrassing than Ethan in his Dear Charlotte video.
apartment #6 – ethan
Chapter Thirty-three
I turn off all my notifications, except for calls. When Charlotte’s ready to talk to me, she’ll call. Probably when she gets home and finds out I haven’t even taken the video down yet.
(I will, but right now I can’t even bring myself to open the page back up long enough to delete it.)
In the meantime, I bury myself in my old university hoodie, the hood up and the strings pulled tight around my face, lying face-down on the sofa and slowly dying of the mortification. What does it even matter if I take the video down now? There are tweets about it.
Snippets that have been reposted online. A damn BuzzFeed article.
Everyone we know will have circulated it and I dread the next event we go to with mutual friends who will all be talking about it, and none of them are ever going to let me live it down.
Oh man, and how unprofessional is it? It’s so obviously a mistake, so stupid. What if this costs me brand deals in the future? What if I end up having to go back to a nine-to-five, and this is the first thing they see when they google me? It’s a disaster.
This could ruin my life. Not to mention it’s most definitely ruined the proposal.
It was supposed to be perfect.
I was going to figure it all out, but now . . .
Oh, what’s even the point?
My life is over and I’m locked in the apartment. I decide I can cut myself some slack; it’s really not like there’s much I can do right now other than wallow. Later, I’ll pick myself up, delete the video, upload a new one explaining it was a mistake. I’ll talk to Charlotte when she’s ready, and hope she’s not so humiliated she forgives me quickly, and once we’ve talked it through, I’ll call my family back, or finally reply to their texts. And maybe, then, I’ll stay away from the internet for a little while.
But right now, I groan into the sofa cushions again, and embrace the tightness in my chest, the sweating palms, the overwhelming sense of mortification that squirms through my whole body, and indulge in a pity party for one.
It’s a while before I hear something outside. It sounds like someone yelling, and someone else shouting back at them to shut up.
I don’t pay it much attention, until I hear them shout, unmistakably, “Mad Man Maddox, get your cute butt out here!”
No.
No.
Oh my God.
apartment #17 – serena
Chapter Thirty-four
I am absolutely, completely exhausted.
I study my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I look worse for wear for a lack of sleep, like I did on Wednesday morning. The bags under my eyes are even deeper, now, something I didn’t think was possible. My eyes are bloodshot and puffy too—although this time it’s from crying. I prod and poke at my face a few times, like I can turn it back to normal that way, before giving up and climbing into the shower.
I lean into the embrace of the hot water and steam, and let out a sigh I feel like I’ve been holding in for . . . not even just for a few days.
For years, without even realizing it.
Zach and I spent all evening talking things through. We only argued a few times, and only shouted at each other once or twice. We kept talking well into the night. It must have been four in the morning before we fell asleep, both of us so tired we slept on top of the covers on the bed, side by side, and not even having changed into our pajamas.
I woke up this morning with his arm around me and my cheek pressed against his chest, and it made me want to cry, because I didn’t know if we would ever really be back to normal again.
I guess, to be fair to Zach, my explosion on Wednesday morning did come out of nowhere. But he didn’t argue with the fact that he should have his own opinions on what he wanted our future to look like, and that it was fair for me to expect that from him.
As it turns out, though, that’s not the kind of thing you can figure out with a single late-night conversation. And it turns out that even now we’ve cleared the air and started talking, we’re still pretty snappy with each other. Like we’ve been like that with each other for so long, it’s a habit we can’t suddenly break now. I’m not sure we ever truly will.
I did pluck up the courage to ask if he felt like he was settling.
And he did cry then, promising me that he always felt lucky to have me, and he was sorry if he made me feel like he was settling.
I was a big enough person to apologize and say I was sorry if I ever made him feel that way too.
We still have so much to work out—and Zach has a lot of decisions to make, some of which I’m not sure he ever really will have a strong opinion on—but, at least, I suppose, we’re out the other side.
For better or worse. In sickness and in health.
Until lockdown lifts, do we part.
I sigh again and lean forward, pressing my forehead to the cool shower tiles. We still have to talk about what we’ll do once we’re allowed out of the building tomorrow. I feel like that’s another painful conversation just waiting to happen.
Part of me regrets ever bringing any of this up at all. For not thinking, Screw it, let the boy have pineapple on his pizza and forget about it. Part of me wishes I were more like Zach, able to just not consider these things until . . . well, until.
And part of me wishes we’d done this a long, long time ago.
Either way, it’s done now, and we’ve both said things we can never take back, and we both have to find a way to muddle through this somehow, whatever that means.
The thought of losing him, of him moving out, or maybe us selling the apartment and me having to move back home to my parents or, even worse, suddenly find myself living alone, is terrifying. The idea of Zach not being there, making me laugh, never surprising me with some random weekend away or spontaneous plans for a date night.