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“Amir!” I call from across the field to one of the Sanctuary’s guards. He turns around and offers a small wave as I walk towards him.
“What do you need, Juliette?”
“Hi,” I say. “Do you know where Aaron went? He didn’t come to the dining tent for dinner and I’ve been looking around for him but can’t find him.”
I’m not exactly worried—not yet at least—but considering that we’ve hardly been apart these last few days makes the fact that I can’t seem to locate him rather strange. A draft of wind rushes through us and I wrap my arms tighter around myself. Days are getting warmer, but the temperature descends drastically some nights. I can barely feel the tips of my fingers.
“Oh!” Amir exclaims, his cheeks also flushed from the cold. “I do. I just passed him by the entrance, right by where all the people were piling up.”
I raise an eyebrow at that. “What is he doing there?”
He raises his shoulders. “Don’t know ma’am, but that’s where he was.”
“Well, thanks, Amir.”
“No problem, ma’am.”
I start walking in the direction that Amir pointed me to, trying not to trip in the darkness of the night.
Yesterday, we were informed of a crowd gathering at the edge of the Sanctuary. We were all worried for a few seconds before finding out it wasn’t an angry mob or a retaliation army, but a crowd of people cheering for us. We were protected from the outside because of Samantha’s disguises, and because of those same protections, not a lot of sound made it in from the outside. But the closer we got to the edge of the Sanctuary, the better we could hear the crowd.
They were chanting my name.
I went outside, past the threshold of the Sanctuary, before anyone could stop me. I was curious to see what was going on. The moment I went past the Sanctuary’s barrier, I was immediately greeted with the most enthusiastic crowd I’ve seen in my entire life. Before I even knew how, I had someone’s baby in my arms and Kenji was stopping someone from cutting off a chunk of my hair. Hands were trying to shake mine and arms were trying to hug me. We were all nearly trampled by the crowd before Aaron pulled us back into the Sanctuary.
It was a new experience for me.
I spot him in the distance, standing nearly immobile as he looks upon the now dissipating crowd. Even from here, I see his eyes scan over the crowd of people. I suddenly understand what he’s doing.
I approach him quietly and, when I get close enough, wrap my arms around him, hugging him from behind and standing on my tippy toes to rest my chin on his shoulder. I’m instantly enveloped by the warmth of his body. The richness of his scent.
“Hey,” I whisper.
Without looking away from the people, he intertwines his fingers with mine over his torso. “Hi.”
“How’s it looking out there? Anyone want to kill me?”
He lets out a breath. “No. I don’t think so at least.”
“Better luck tomorrow?”
“Please don’t joke about that.”
I chuckle and press a kiss to his cheek. “Sorry.”
I drop down from my position and walk around him to stand on his side, lean my head against his shoulder.
“Are you all done for the day?” he asks.
I nod. Since getting back to the Sanctuary, we’ve had to delegate quite a lot of tasks between us, from reconstruction, communication with other sectors, food distribution, to medical services. It seems like there are not enough hours in the day to do everything. I enjoy being busy though, it makes me feel useful (to what Aaron remarked that I had been useful enough for a couple of lifetimes, but alas). It helps me keep my mind off things.
“I missed you today,” I say, squeezing his hand.
“I missed you too, love,” he says softly.
We watch the last remaining members of the crowd dissipate as they go back to their own homes to shield themselves from the cold.
“Let’s go to bed.”
***
I stall in the bathroom after we’re done washing up.
I look at myself in the mirror, trying to muster the courage to ask him.
I know why the topic hasn’t come up. We’ve barely been back at the Sanctuary for five days and I spent most of the first one in the medical tent. We buried my sister just three days ago. We’ve had enough horrible experiences to last a lifetime in the last month and I can hardly comprehend how we’re still alive but—
But we haven’t talked about our engagement.
Not one word about it. Not even an allusion to it.
I know he’s trying to give me time. That he hasn’t brought it up in respect towards me and my healing. Our healing. That if it were up to him we would probably have been married since the day he proposed. I know that in my heart as surely as I know Aaron himself.
My head is another story. A small, irrational, but oh so invasive part of me wonders if he’s having any second thoughts. That maybe he thinks we were rushing. That proposing to me was a heat-of-the-moment decision and now that we’re not in immediate danger he’s had more time to think about it and doesn’t feel like getting married anymore. And I know it’s stupid to think this. He has not given me any indication that this is true whatsoever. But he hasn’t given me any that he wants to either. Well, I really shouldn’t say that, but even after how far I’ve come, some voices are hard to keep quiet.
I know I’m overthinking. I know I’m being irrational. I know he loves me and I know he meant it when he proposed. And we promised to be honest with each other always and I know if I would just ask—
“Love,” Aaron calls from our room. “Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I call back, trying to sound like I wasn’t about to spiral in the bathroom. It’s no use, of course. I can’t hide anything from him. But I still try. “Coming!”
The lights of the bedroom area are already off when I come out, and when I switch the lights of the bathroom off, the room is consumed by darkness. It takes my eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to it, but soon the objects in our tiny home begin to take shape. I hear Aaron rustle the sheets as he gets into bed. For a moment all I do is look at him. The edges of his body, softened by the glow of the dim moonlight streaming into the room, moving as he sits back against the wall.
“Come here,” he says.
And like a moth to the flame, I follow.
I crawl over him, straddling his hips as I lay my head on his chest.
His arms surround me, one hand cradling the back of my head, fingers intertwining with the strands of my hair, and the other spreading along my back. I feel his chest rise and fall a couple of times, listen to the steady beat of his heart. I had no idea how much I had missed this—him—while I was gone until I had him back. Moments like this, when it’s just him and I pressed together in the dead of night. When everything is so quiet it feels like we’re the only two people in the world.
I saw him everywhere. The way he moves, the way he talks. I kept finding him in other places even when I didn’t know who he was. All of my memories and feelings had been trapped deep inside my brain, hitting me at the same time when they broke free. I’m convinced not one force in the universe would’ve been strong enough to break us apart those first few days back here in the Sanctuary. He stayed with me the whole time the twins fixed my broken and torn up body. The whole time as friends, old and new, trickled in to greet us back and make sure I was okay. Through my sister’s burial and me crying for hours after it.
I’m not sure he even slept the first two or three nights. Every time I woke he was awake too, just holding my body to his. He said he slept, but I’m not entirely convinced.
I feel his lips brush against the top of my head.
He asks, “What’s on your mind?”
I swallow, pushing away from him to look him in the eye.
“Can we...talk about something?”
He brings his hands to my face, tucking my hair behind my ears. Before he removes them, I turn my head to press a kiss on his wrist. “Of course, love,” he says. “Anything.”
I take a deep breath, let it out slowly.
“Okay, so,” I start, unsure of how to continue. “First, I just want to make sure that you know I really don’t want to make you feel bad or guilty or anything by me saying this, I just want for us to clear some things up. And I know that there’s a very valid reason for this in the first place and I love you so much for being so considerate to begin with—“
“Love, please,” he interrupts. “Take a breath. Just tell me what you want to say, you don’t have to preface it.”
A few seconds go by.
“Do you still want us to get married?” I blurt out.
His mouth falls open but no words come out. Then, “I see.”
I wait for him to continue, when he doesn’t I press with “Aaron?”
He shakes his head as if snapping out of his thoughts. “Of course I still want to get married, love. I’m so sorry for ever making you feel like—“
“No, Aaron, wait,” I say, bringing my hands up to his chest. “That’s what I meant by me not trying to make you feel bad about it. A lot of... horrible things have happened in the last couple of weeks and I know that you’re just being respectful of me and my feelings by not bringing this up. You know how I overthink things—”
“Hey,” he says, sitting up straight so our eyes are aligned, our noses almost touching each other. “Asking you to marry me is one of the only good choices I’ve made in my entire life. Other than whatever it is I did to have you love me.”
A hundred thousand butterflies have migrated to my stomach. I lean forward until our lips meet. He kisses me back for a moment, his hand grabbing a fistful of my hair and crushing me against him. I’m breathless by the time we break apart, every nerve ending in my body awake.
“There’s nothing I've ever wanted more than to be your family,” he whispers into my neck. “But I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”
“I don’t want to wait,” I say, mirroring the words he said to me a lifetime ago as I sneak my hands under his shirt. “Let’s not wait.”
“It’s true what you said, love,” he responds. “We don’t have to do it now. A wedding is supposed to be a happy thing. I want you to enjoy that day and not have to be sad about anything.”
“I’m probably always going to be a little sad about something. The life Emmaline and I didn’t have together. The time that you and I lost. But I don’t want to live in that sadness anymore. I want to move forward, and I want to do it with you,” I say, leaning against him until our chests are pressed together, forcing him back down into the mattress. “I want to be your wife.” A kiss on his jaw. “So badly.”
“You’re going to kill me one day,” he says, his hands clenching the bottom of my shirt.
“Can we, then? Can we get married now?”
He lets his head fall back onto the pillow furrowing his brows. “Give me two weeks.”
“Why?” I pout.
“It’s how long I need to put together a wedding.”
“Aaron I don’t need a—”
“Ella, I already didn’t give you an engagement ring. Please let me do this for you.”
I narrow my eyes at him, and I’m about to say something when he says, “And if you think I’m passing up my opportunity to see you in a wedding dress you are absolutely demented.”
I laugh, throwing my head back. He takes the opportunity to flip us over in the bed so he’s on top of me. His knee pushes my legs apart, and I wrap myself around him as he settles between them.
“One week,” I negotiate.
“Ten days.”
I sigh, considering. “Fine. But not one more.”
“How impatient,” he says, kissing my temple.
“I’ve been waiting for you a long time.”
His eyes, so full bright and full of emotion, meet mine and I can hardly breathe. “We have,” he whispers.
“We’re going to have to tell everyone,” I say.
“Kenji knows. Nazeera too. That we’re engaged, I mean.”
“What? How?”
“I would really appreciate not going into details, but I told him and he told her. And he might’ve told other people by now if we’re being completely honest with ourselves.”
“Huh,” I say, trying to picture what scenario he could’ve told Kenji we’re engaged. “Do you think they’re going to hate us for having to plan a wedding in a week?”
“Ten days,” he corrects me.
I smile. “Right.”
“Most definitely. I can live with it.”
I shake my head and pull him down for another kiss. I know then that everything we’ve done was worth it. That I would go through everything again if it meant I could be here with him at this moment on this cold, quiet night. Our story had been begging to start for so long after being paused, rewound, and deleted so many times. But here we were now, finally starting our forever.