Zoe
The ring on my finger catches the sunlight, and I cannot stop looking at it, cannot stop touching it, cannot stop smiling. Liam laughs at me from the kitchen of his apartment, his hands covered in flour, his hair a mess, his eyes warm and bright. He is trying to make pancakes, and he is failing, and I love him more than I have ever loved anyone.
"You are going to burn the kitchen down," I say, and I walk toward him, and I wrap my arms around his waist, and I press my face against his back, and I feel his laugh rumble through his chest.
"Then you will have to save me," he says, and he turns in my arms, and he kisses me, soft and sweet, and I taste the syrup on his lips, and I do not care about the pancakes, do not care about anything except this, except him.
We have been engaged for a week, and the world has not stopped spinning, has not changed the way I thought it would, but I have changed, I am changing, every day, every moment, becoming someone new, someone I did not know I could be. My mother cried when I told her, tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of a woman who has watched her daughter suffer and is finally watching her be happy.
"He is a good man," she said, and she held my hands, and she looked at the ring, and she smiled, the same smile she used to give me when I was small, when the world was simple, when the only thing that mattered was that we had each other. "He loves you. I can see it in his eyes."
I think about that now, standing in Liam's kitchen, watching him scrape the burned pancakes onto a plate and pretend they are not ruined. I think about the future, about the wedding, about the life we are going to build, and I feel something I have not felt in a long time, something that feels like excitement, like anticipation, like the beginning of an adventure I did not know I wanted.
"We should go see your mother today," Liam says, and he sets the plate on the table, and he sits down, and I sit across from him, and I look at him, at the man who has become my everything. "She wants to help with the wedding planning. She called me this morning."
I raise my eyebrows, and I smile, and I feel the warmth spread through my chest, the love, the gratitude, the overwhelming joy of having people who care about me, who want to be part of my life. "She called you?"
"She said you are too stubborn to ask for help," he says, and he grins, and I throw a napkin at him, and he catches it, and we laugh, and the sound fills the kitchen, fills the apartment, fills the world.
My mother is waiting for us on the porch of the lake house, a notebook in her lap, a pen in her hand, her face bright with excitement. She looks better than she has in months, her color good, her eyes clear, her hands steady. The treatments are working, and the doctors say she is in remission, and I thank every star in the sky for every day I get to have her.
"Sit, sit," she says, and she pats the chair beside her, and I sit, and Liam sits on the step, and we spend the afternoon talking about flowers and colors and guest lists and cakes. My mother has opinions, strong opinions, and I let her have them, because watching her plan my wedding is watching her live, is watching her be present, is watching her be the mother I remember from before the sickness.
"You are quiet," she says to Liam, and he looks up, and I see the smile on his face, soft and warm. "What do you think? White roses or pink?"
"Whatever makes her happy," he says, and he looks at me, and I feel my heart swell, feel the tears prick at my eyes, feel the overwhelming love I have for this man, for my mother, for this life I am building.
My mother looks at me, and she sees the tears, and she reaches out and she takes my hand, and she squeezes it, and I know that she understands, that she knows what this means to me, that she is grateful, the same way I am grateful, for every moment, for every breath, for every day we have together.
"White roses," my mother says, and she writes it in her notebook, and she smiles, and the sun sets over the lake, and we sit on the porch, the three of us, and I hold my mother's hand and Liam's hand, and I feel complete, whole, exactly where I am supposed to be.
We drive back to the city as the stars come out, and I lean my head against Liam's shoulder, and I watch the lights blur past, and I think about the woman I was a year ago, desperate and alone, willing to do anything to save my mother. I think about the choices I made, the lies I told, the risks I took, and I do not regret any of them, because they led me here, to this moment, to this man, to this life.
"What are you thinking about?" Liam asks, and his voice is soft, and he kisses the top of my head, and I close my eyes, and I breathe him in.
"I am thinking about how lucky I am," I say, and I mean it, I mean it with my whole chest. "I am thinking about how scared I was, and how I almost said no, and how glad I am that I did not."
He pulls me closer, and I feel his heart beating against my cheek, steady and strong, and I know that this is real, that this is forever, that we are going to make it, no matter what comes.
"I am the lucky one," he says, and his voice is rough, the way it gets when he is feeling something he cannot put into words. "You walked into my office and you changed everything. You saved me, Zoe. You saved me from myself."
I look up at him, and I see the tears in his eyes, the same tears I feel in my own, and I reach up and I touch his face, and I kiss him, soft and slow, and the world falls away, and there is nothing but us, nothing but this, nothing but the love we have found in each other.