The Proposal [ Short Story]

Sometimes we have to live certain things all over again, maybe even after we are married, we got to begin with the proposal again.

“I’m done.” She said, dramatically throwing her hands in the air for emphasis. “I’m done, Kasyn. I’ve had enough. It will simply not work after this point. We have reached that stage we both dreaded. No Kasyn, won’t work. Don’t give me that puppy dog face, please. I’m done.”

He looked at her waning self, curled into a ball at the corner of the room, softly sobbing to herself.
It had begun well, their love story that is. Sudden, like a breath of fresh air to his suffocated, fed up nostrils. He knew she was the one, even before she began talking to him, as a friend. The proposal, not so special, because even before they had really fallen in love, their families had intervened and made them exchange rings and vows and the world declared them man and wife.

The minute she left her home and took a flight to reach his place, holding his hand tight, laughing along with him, kissing his cheek when no one was looking.

She was his, after all. The minute she left her home and took a flight to reach his place, holding his hand tight, laughing along with him, kissing his cheek when no one was looking, ruffling his hair and finally when the flight was too tedious, rolled into a tight ball, and slept on his wide shoulder. Not a single tear. He noted. He wondered if she did not miss her home even a tiny bit. So that was the first thing he asked her when she woke up with a start when the flight jerkily touched ground.

“Don’t you miss home?”
“What home?”
“Yours, love”
“What my home? You’re my home”

She said as she cheerily got up to gather her rucksack and tucked her phone inside her dungaree pocket. She did not even think twice before answering that question! And he knew that day.
She was his.
Only his and he would protect her with all his heart and might. His.
His.
How long had it been since the last time he looked into her eyes and said, “I love you” and really meant it?
How long had it been since the last kiss? The last touch?
She bristled a little and stared into vacant space for several minutes. Watching her big beautiful eyes, swollen with crying and void of emotions, something in him, rose up to a gargantuan size and suddenly shattered completely.
Walking up to her curled body, he knelt right infront of her and took her hand. She looked at him with so much surprise and open-mouthed amazement.

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“Kaia?”, he whispered.
“mm-hmm?”

Kasyn the stupid boy, not Kasyn the perfect someone you thought you fell in love with.

“I’m Kasyn. Kasyn who? Kasyn-not-so-flawless. Kasyn the stupid boy, not Kasyn the perfect someone you thought you fell in love with. But you are still the Kaia I loved. It is idiotic how, how-much-ever far I go from you, I only radiate towards you again. Baby, you’re all I’ve dreamt of. You’re all I’ve wanted. You’re everything I need. My soulmate, my Megan Fox. Kaia. Kaia, tell me Kaia, will you accept my proposal all over again? I do not promise an awesome life or a super flawless tomorrow. But Kaia, I swear, I will always love you perfectly, I will always protect you and love you and keep you safe. Will you accept my proposal? Will you be mine?”
His tear streaked face was smiling, and she shivered as she cried.
For several minutes, everything was still.
She choked and kept crying in silence.
He waited, on his knees, still smiling.
Visions of her unfulfilled desires of a proper proposal, flitted before her eyes. How childish! The number of times she initiated a fight, crept her thoughts and she cringed.
On the first night of marriage, even before consummating the holy vows, he had took her hand in his, kissed it and said, “you’re really mine,right?” She had been slightly overwhelmed, slightly overjoyed with that question. And when they slept that night, he had rolled over to her side, pinning her, wrapping her into a burrito like embrace.

She was a self-made woman. She did not ‘need’ a man to complete her, she was complete in herself. But this man complemented her existence as perfectly as Yin-Yang. It was amazing how, even his bodily curves were made so beautifully for her, to fit in snugly- side by side: an equal, a playmate, a friend(of sorts), a brother, a mother- he was all! She watched his steady ebb and flow of breathing and turned over on her stomach to watch him sleep- like Edward did to Bella.(Erm..no.) She laughed at herself as she realised she was actually watching someone sleep, the one creepy thing she thought was the worst activity in the wide, wide world!

She knew then, this was the man of her dreams.
Kasyn.
Kneeling before her, he looked small, vulnerable. The man whom no one could break, the strongest man she knew, he knelt before her, awaiting that one word that would make or break his life. She knew he had given no one ever, the right to break him, ever; But here he was, heart in hand, awaiting her answer.
A lot of tears.
Recollection.
Flashback.
Silence.
More tears.

And suddenly, cutting the thick silence in the air, came her reply,

“Yes”.

Writer’s note: My stories are not autobiographical.

Cover image via Shutterstock

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