My heart was slamming in my chest—one, two, three—like the volleyballs being smacked across the net. One, two, three—it was all synchronized. In my pocket, I clutched a small box that held my future. It all depended on a choice out of my hands. I took a deep breath, tightening my hold, and continued watching the game.
The stadium wasn’t very big—it was almost like a school gym, except nicer. It wasn’t ridiculously cold either, which was nice. It was an hour’s drive from our apartment, which wasn’t so nice. It was lucky for the both of us that where she regularly practiced was a lot closer than here.
There was something to be said about that feeling. You know, that feeling like you’re suddenly falling and the floor beneath you is just as stable as it was before, except you aren’t.
The last few points were scored. The gathered crowd leapt up in the stands. I did too. It provided a kind of euphoric release, not to mention, she’d won the game.
It wasn’t a huge game—the professional athlete life was a bit too much for her, regardless of skill. But this small, city organized game was just the kind of thing for her. She wasn’t an amateur athlete, per say, but if she wanted to she could be. Neither of us knew what she wanted for the future. Both of us realized that that was alright.
And there she was, her dark hair tied up into a now disorganized ponytail that could hardly contain her curls. It unwove itself even more as she too jumped up and down with a kind of joy that stopped my heart. Her dark skin was sleek with sweat. We made eye contact and she gave me an excited wave, one hand on her mouth as she giggled.
They’d won, and just barely too. That somehow made it more amazing than if they’d wiped the floor with the other team. It was that human nature to prevail and fight and bounce back. That love of conflict and of challenge.
I pushed past everyone, leaping over benches and right into her arms.
“You did amazing,” I whispered, my hands framing her face. She kissed me, both slow and far too brief.
“I know, right?” Her team began to crowd around us, laughing and clapping each other on the back. I took a deep breath. Before I could change my mind, I dropped to one knee.
“Wha…what are you doing Manuela?” She was smiling slightly, and I could see excitement flare up in her eyes. I grinned. Now that I was in the moment, my fear evaporated. In fact, so much so that I missed the fear in her face when the crowd began murmuring to themselves. When her teammates cheered, when she noticed we weren’t alone.
One, two, three.
“Celia, will you marry me?” That’s when I noticed. She seemed to be backing away, overwhelmed and looking all around her. Her breath sped up and I found myself mirroring her. She always had such an influence on me.
“Celia?” I spoke softly and insistently, trying to draw her attention back to me. She was glancing around wildly, like a cornered rabbit.
“I…I just…I’m sorry!” She took off, shouldering past everyone.
And all the eyes on her, I felt them shifting to me. Like a strange, crushed bug to gawk at.
One, two, three.
I slowly got up, lifting the weight of my mistake, and followed after her.
There was something to be said about feeling hundreds of eyes piercing through you.
I found her crying in the bathroom. It wasn’t hard to guess where she’d be, really. She was always so scared of people. Of life. Of compromising her privacy. The bathroom was her safe space.
And here I was, blundering into it.
I knocked on her stall—the only one with the sound of someone sobbing behind it.
“Celia?”
I heard a sharp sniffle and a shuffling sound. She poked her head out of the stall.
“Yeah?” Her eyes were red and puffy—not an unusual sight on her. Even if the breakdown was brief, her face always looked like she’d been weeping all day.
“It’s ok, if you don’t want to get engaged just yet. If you want time to think about it.”
“It isn’t that,” she said, coming out and siting against the opposite wall. I came down to sit by her. “I just—there were so many people, Manuela, and they were all staring and I didn’t know what to do and now I embarrassed us both and—” She broke into tears again. I held her, and she let me.
“People will forget about this. That’s what people do best. They forget. And the people who know you, who don’t forget, they’ll understand. They know you and how you are. I just don’t get it—I thought this was your dream proposal.”
“What? I never said that?”
I frowned, pulling away slightly so I could look at her face.
“I could’ve sworn that you told me about it.”
There was a small puzzled expression on her face, and then she asked, “Manuela, was I drunk?”
“I think so.” At this, she burst out laughing.
“I’ve been sober for a year! Manuela, how did you remember that?”
I shrugged, a small smile on my face in response to hers. “I don’t know. I just did. I wanted you to feel so special, and since this is the last game in the season, I figured it was the perfect time.”
“That’s really sweet. You planned this whole thing…”
“I didn’t plan anything. I just bought a ring. That I can easily return. Or give to you, for when you’re ready to get engaged.”
“I am ready. It was just a little much for me. Maybe…maybe ask me at a small restaurant.”
“I can rent it out for us so no one’s watching.”
“Really? You’d do that?”
“No. It seems very expensive.” She laughed, and my heart fluttered at the sound. She leaned over and reached into my pocket, taking out the box.
“You know,” she said quietly, rubbing her thumb along the surface of the fabric, “you deserve better.”
“Darling, I’m a depressed mess whose been on ten different kinds of medication since I was seventeen and found myself hopeless and jobless until who helped me get back on my feet?”
She smiled again. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard this speech, and it wouldn’t be last.
“I did.”
“And who’s the girl who helped me through the psychiatric process that I’d become lost in?”
“Me.” She giggled.
“And now who stays with me when I feel that lack of anything in my chest, who drags me out when I refuse to get out of bed?”
“Our cat.” I swatted at her and she full out laughed.
“You know what? Maybe I will propose to you.” She smiled, turning it over and over. She liked the concept of surprises, I’d noted in the past, but hated the reality of them. They scared her, caught her off guard. There was this one time, years ago, when she mentioned how cool a surprise birthday party would be. She completely forgot about the idea, and then she walked through the doors of our apartment a few months later and saw the huge crowd of people waiting to greet her and walked right back out. Didn’t say a single word. We had to cancel the party.
She loved the idea of being able to say yes to me, the whole world watching. It was hard though. It could be hard for the both of us.
Maybe it was better this way. Her asking, me knowing I’d say yes, both of us knowing that.
I looked at my watch. “There’s going to be a celebration, isn’t there? With your teammates? Do you still want to go?”
She shook her head. “I already texted them that I’m skipping out. They haven’t responded yet.”
“Let’s go home and do something nice and quiet.”
“That sounds nice.”
I took her hand, and she took mine. We walked out of there together, ignoring the people outside the building that watched and stared, tightening our holds whenever either of us got nervous. As I was driving back home, I glanced over and saw her staring at the box in her lap.
“Take your time figuring it out. Don’t worry about it.”
A few weeks passed. It was a joy to have her back around the house now that she didn’t need to concentrate on practice. Which also meant I found the anticipation to be more challenging than I’d realized it’d be. Every time we did anything even remotely special I found myself looking around, expecting a ring to pop out of nowhere. She noticed it, found it hilarious even. On more than one occasion she had to clarify that she wasn’t about to propose. I suppose it served me right; I’d put her in the spot in the first place.
There was something to be said about two grown adults walking around a house in onesies eating ice cream sandwiches at one in the morning.
We’d just finished watching Up, which was a ridiculous choice in Disney movie since it always made Celia cry. Besides, it was a bad night for me, when I could particularly feel the depression throbbing in my chest, and therefore, could feel very little at all. She said a Disney movie was sure to cheer me up, and I was skeptical. But when she got an idea in her head she was damn well going to follow through on it, despite what the people around her had to say. And she’d been right, too—there was something about her that always made me brighten, whether it was her cheesy sense of humor or the way she felt so much so hard that I couldn’t help but do the same. Neither of us had been drinking; I didn’t drink, and she used to drink too much, so now neither of us drink. I’d gotten a craving for ice cream sandwiches and since Celia always told me my cravings were contagious we slapped saltine crackers on some ice cream and created the worst ice cream sandwiches ever invented.
Neither of us were willing to drive to the store to get some real ones.
Our apartment was quite modest and, in my opinion, nice. Ever since Celia sobered up she took care of finances—she was always great with numbers. We were currently sprawled out on the couch, her fingers running through my thick, brown hair.
And there we were, laughing so hard we could barely breath at some awful pun I made. It was funny how anything could become hilarious when two people were tired.
“I need to pee,” she wheezed, rolling off the couch and running off to the bathroom. She came back with both hands behind her, something I barely noticed and didn’t assign importance to. That is, until she dropped down and held out a little open box in front of her.
“Manuela, will you marry me?”
There wasn’t a need to explain anything, or talk by that point. I’ve found that the longer you’re with someone the less you feel the need to talk. It was all just unnecessary instructions to a choreography we’d memorized a long time ago. The music that’d we listened to that had once seemed so fast and mesmerizing had slowed to simple beats.
One, two, three.
I smiled.