He reluctantly pulls the car away from his spot a block away from her building and starts the long drive home. He feels constricted. Like there is a heavy weight on his chest and on his shoulders and in his heart. He puts the window down to get some fresh air but it only seems to make it worse. He feels the thick heat of the city and he hears the loud noises of traffic and people and he can practically feel himself being pulled back to her. After a few minutes he decides that he can’t take it anymore and he makes a left at the next one way street, and then another left and then another until he’s in front of her apartment.

He throws on his hazards and ignores someone yelling at him for double parking as he runs back up the steps to her apartment, not wanting to wait another second. He laughs inwardly at how familiar this feels. This feeling of racing back to her to show her that he’s here, and to ask her something that will forever change the landscape of their relationship. He knows now that he can’t leave her in the city without doing this first. How could he have thought he could? He hears his heart pounding in his ears and he feels his hands sweaty and shaky as he opens the door to her building.

She looks surprised to see him again, but she quickly realizes why he’s returned as he sinks to one knee. He pulls a small black box from his pocket, and says, his voice low and gravelly, “I just came back to say that…I love you and I had a whole speech planned but I just….I love you, so much, and if you would just marry me, please…I’d be the happiest man in the world.”

He looks up at her and he is nervous, excited, hopeful. She tugs on his arms until he’s standing in front of her and she kisses him hard and whispers “yes, yes, absolutely yes.”

He leans his forehead against hers, closes his eyes, and breathes.