Chapter Text
It was a bright, sunny day, and Ryan and Cat were taking an afternoon stroll through the woods. This was something they had done many a time throughout their years together, and it had never become any less pleasant, always serving as an opportunity for the two of them to clear their minds.
Until today, that was.
"Ryan. Ask me to marry you." Cat said suddenly, seemingly out of the blue.
"Cat... Please don't." Ryan began, sheer panic filling him at her words.
He had always known this day would come eventually. But he had avoided thinking about it so much, that he didn't have the slightest idea what he would do when it was time to face reality. Now he was stuck, with no way out except to deal with his situation. He knew he had to do what was right, even if it wasn't what was easy.
"I have always loved you, for as long as I have known you." she continued, paying no attention to him. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. After all, why would you be courting a woman, if you did not have the intent of marrying her?"
Ryan let out a small, nervous laugh. Why, indeed? He didn't know. Perhaps for the approval of his family. Perhaps because of the acceptance it appeared to afford him amongst his fellow men. Perhaps to prove to himself that he was as worthy of romantic love as anyone else was.
Perhaps, above everything else, he just wanted to feel like a regular human being for once.
"Cat." He tried to interrupt her again, but she still carried on.
"I have waited for you to propose to me, and I have never once complained about how long it is taking you, because I was trying to hold on to my faith in you and believe you would ask me in your own time. But now-"
"What if that's not what I want?" Ryan forced the words from his throat, where they had been sitting for much longer than he had previously cared to admit.
She stopped and stared at him.
"Pardon?" Cat asked, in disbelief at what she was hearing.
"Cat... You're so good to me, and I'm so grateful to you. But I... I don't know why, but I can't love you as you want me to." he said, and felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
"You can't love me?" Cat said stiffly.
"I care about you deeply. But I just can't see myself in the kind of life that you dream about, Cat. I don't think I could ever be your husband." Ryan told her. "I can't change the way I feel, and it would be a lie to say that I want that life when I don't. I'm so sorry, Cat, so desperately sorry. But I can't help it."
Cat stepped away from him, looking wounded.
"Ryan. I can't love anyone else." she said, her voice full of pain.
"It would be a disaster if we married. We would be miserable! You're always late, and you can be careless sometimes. And I always need attention from you. And though we think it's nothing right now, life is long. It could become something." Ryan said.
"I would try my best to make it work. And so would you." Cat insisted.
"I can't, Cat. I've tried to make it work in my mind so many times, and I've always failed." Ryan said, raising his voice a little.
"Everyone is expecting us to get married. All of my family, and yours. Ryan, say you will, and let's be happy!" she tried again to convince him.
"I can't say yes truly. So I won't say it at all." Ryan shook his head. "Trust me, Cat. You don't want to be married to me. You'll see that I'm right, eventually, and you'll thank me for it."
"I don't think I ever will." Cat told him.
"One day you will find a great, accomplished man who will love you in all the ways that I never could, and you will go and live with him in his fine house." Ryan took a deep breath before continuing to speak. "I will never be that man, Cat. I'm awkward and odd, and you would be ashamed of me. And we would quarrel, we can't help it even now! I'd hate the expectations you'd have of me, and you would hate my constant scribbling, and we would be unhappy and wish we hadn't done it, and everything will be horrid!"
"Anything else?" Cat asked, looking at him.
"Nothing more. Except that... I don't think I will ever marry." Ryan said, giving voice to the thoughts that he'd had his whole life, but had always attempted to silence. "I'm happy as I am, and I love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up."
Cat shook her head again.
"No. You will care for somebody one day. You will love her tremendously, and you will live and die for her. I know you, Ryan. You will, and I'll watch."
"Cat..." Ryan began, though he didn't know what he was going to say next.
She turned and walked away from him, through the woods that had become theirs over the years they'd known each other. When she was out of his sight, Ryan began to sob, sinking down onto the grass with his head in his hands. His heart was in pieces like a dropped glass, and the worst part was that it was self-inflicted.