“is this what you pulled me away from my family for?” her arms around my shoulders, my hands on her sides only inches away from her…fuck focus.

“No…” I really need new shoes… I need to know. “Is this what you want? Do you want to get married in your mother’s backyard in a …amazing white sundress?”

This isn’t going like I planned; does she have to look at me like that? That nervous smile on her lips, her eyes searching mine, and I can’t look in them.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…do you still want to marry me? Because this is…this is fast, I don’t want to rush this.” she pushes me away and I can feel my heart break into a thousand pieces. “No don’t Carmen…I want to marry you I do, I just feel like the only reason that you want to do it right now is because of your mom. Because three days ago everything I have ever done to hurt you was published in a magazine for the world to see…because I just came back into your live a month ago.”

She doesn’t want me to push her away, but I can see it in her eyes, that pain that kills me.

“You’re right.” what? “I love you Shane and I know that you love me…I know it because you kiss me every morning, because you hold me until I fall asleep each night. I have no idea what my mother is doing; she asked me if I was happy. And I said yes, that I wished we were together…she just decided that we‘re going to get married”

That look of panic, of complete fear and I want to hold her tight to tell her that I have and will always love her. I’ve loved her since that day when she said she was mine…shit she read my vows. She found the fucking box.

“You found the box?” the fucking box that held my life, everything that mattered.

She stops moving, instead she holds her thumb staring at her feet, her hair falling in her face. That stolen glance that makes my heart beat faster that makes it whole.

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Her voice filling my head, I want to marry her…no I don’t. Ever since she left I thought that the only way I could ever be with her was if we were married. That the only way I would know that she really loved me was if we got married.