“Lumi,” he began, “there’s something I have to tell you, and something I have to ask you.”
She felt the hairs stand up on end on her back and took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring, nodding for him to go on.
He took a deep breath and, seeming to draw courage from it, continued. “There’s a part of what I want to say that I can’t put into words.” He sighed. “But what I feel for you is more than love. We’re two sides of the same coin, Lu. I hate when people say stuff like this, but it rather feels like we share the same soul.”
Lumi sucked in her breath.
“I was planning to wait a little longer to do this, but after that birthday party, I can’t wait a day longer to tell you that I want, no, I need to be with you. Forever,” he said.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a burgundy velvet box. He flipped back the lid, and there was a single pear-shaped diamond glittering on a smooth rose gold band.
“Lumi”—he smiled, the sun glinting off his perfect white teeth—“Will you marry me?”
Against her will, she froze. She had heard people say that in the moments before death they saw their life flash before their eyes, and she wondered if the inverse was true. In the seconds right before a new path opened up, could one see her future flash before her eyes?
Because her future with Julien did. Scenes of their life together stretched out before her in one cohesive and exquisite tapestry. Them living together, loving each other, working with each other—she swore that if she hadn’t blinked too soon she would have better seen the image of a redheaded little boy snuggled on her chest.
And at the same time, she could hear the ugly, gnarled voices in her head. Some of them belonged to Inés and some of them were her own. They pointed out that Colton had been a great partner until they had agreed to get engaged. Julien was not Colton, and she couldn’t imagine Julien changing like that. But, back then, she wouldn’t have been able to imagine Colton changing either.
She wanted to think of a better answer to explain her inner conflict to him. But all she came up with was this: “Julien . . . it’s beautiful. Can I think about it?”
Julien’s moony smile gradually morphed into a blank stare. “What?” he asked in a tone barely above a whisper.
“I—I need to think about it,” she stammered.
“Y-you don’t want to marry me?” he asked, his voice hollow.
“It’s not that—it’s not you. It’s . . . marriage.”
He had been looking at the ring, and his glance shot up to her. “What?” he asked in disbelief.
“Marriage. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Why not? I love you, and you love me. What could be a better idea than melding every aspect of our lives?”
“That’s not what marriage is. It ruins people’s lives,” she whispered in horror.
Julien looked startled. “Okay . . . wait. You think that marrying me would ruin your life?”
She shook her head vehemently. “Not just you. Getting married in general. I’ve seen it ruin too many relationships.” She sighed with a weight greater than her body. “We have such a good thing now, I love our relationship the way it is. Why ruin it by getting married?”
“But we’re not talking about getting married in general. We’re talking about you and me.”
Her stomach clenched, and she felt herself starting to sweat.
Silence.
“I know what it is. You don’t think I’m marriage material.”
“What is marriage material?” she interrupted. “Who is marriage material? Although now that you say that . . . are you sure you’re ready for something like this?”
He glared at her. “I can’t believe this. You know, let’s pretend this never happened and just go back to how we were before.”
“We can’t,” she said. “Things will already be different.”
“How can they not be different?” he asked. “After all we’ve been through, you still don’t trust me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, holding back the tears. “It’s not that, it’s—”
“Right, it’s marriage.” He drew in a heavy breath. “I guess it just means something different to me. My parents . . . when my mother passed, it all went to shit, but growing up, watching that beautiful partnership they had, I wanted that, and nothing less.”
“I’m happy for you. But I have no idea what that looks like.”
“It looks like us, Lu.”
She didn’t answer. They stood in silence as their vacant gazes swept across the pond. Lumi noticed some dead fish floating belly-up along the edge that she hadn’t spotted before.
“I had thought, had hoped, we were in a different place. You have the right to say no, obviously. But I will not lie, it hurts,” Julien said.
Lumi winced.
They sat in silence from another stretch, and then he said, “I’m sorry to do this, but I really need to be alone right now.”
“What? We can’t just talk about this?” she asked.
“Maybe another time. Right now, I’d like to call it a day, but I’m also not leaving you here in the park by yourself,” he said.
He turned his body in the direction of the nearest park exit and waited until she began following him to start walking. She trailed behind him until they reached the exit. It had been a long and winding path to the pond, and yet somehow it took only a few steps to get out to the east side.
“There,” he said, his expression slightly dazed, unfocused.
All of a sudden, she felt fear seize her chest and heart. “Are—are you saying goodbye?” she asked.
“No. I just need a little time.”
“Time for what?”
His face was overcast, and his expression didn’t give away his meaning.
He turned away from her and fell in step with the passersby trudging down Fifth Avenue. She got the sudden urge to scream, and she hugged herself, shutting her eyes tightly to repress it. When she opened them, she was alone under a blazing streetlamp. The sun had finally set.
Lumi burst through the door of her apartment, not completely sure how she got there. She had stumbled into the subway, squinted her eyes against the world, and then she was there. She rifled through drawers in her apartment, searching for something without knowing what she was looking for.
“Stop it. Stop it!” she screamed at herself, forcing herself to be still. She sat herself down on the velour couch. It didn’t stop the room from spinning.
As she looked over her living room, the fish hanging from the ceiling were tiny daggers in her heart. They were her, hooked through the mouth with something that felt immovable. She felt a throbbing pain radiating from her mouth just looking at them, and suddenly she needed something, anything, to make the pain go away. She jumped up, ran over to the refrigerator, and snatched up cakes, cookies, pats of butter, apples, anything she could find.
She bit an apple, nothing. Cookie, nothing. She threw each one haphazardly across the kitchen when she found that they didn’t give her what she was looking for. Then she found it in the back of her fridge: a chocolate pie that Julien had made her the week before. She stuck her hand straight into it, raised a glob of silky pudding to her lips, and licked the side of it.