Tiny Little Fractures

Chapter Eleven

I really hadn’t been surprised when Jon asked me to marry him. It was just after we graduated from college. Jon was interning at a children’s hospital closer to home. He had just started working with a new charity that he was really thrilled about. He was living with a friend by the hospital and I was still living by the beach. But I had gotten a job relatively quickly, even though I wouldn’t move up to full-time teaching until almost a year later. We were young, but I knew I would be ready for the next step whenever he was. We had given each other the chance to try different things, and we still hadn’t wanted anything else. Maybe our families wouldn’t agree with our rush, but we didn’t really care what anyone thought.

So he took me on a date. We dated a lot when we weren’t living together. I was over at his apartment all the time anyway, but he said he wanted to do something special. Our dates usually just met Taco Bell after a long shift, maybe a movie if we were lucky, but definitely lots of s*x. He wanted this date to be more meaningful. But he said he wasn’t bright enough to come up with some elaborate plan and proposal in a unique way that I would never forget. So he went with the old fashioned bended knee, diamond ring, and fancy restaurant. I didn’t complain because I never forgot it anyway.

He led me to a table where our view overlooked the whole city by night. It was probably the nicest place he’d ever taken me to, and that was another thing that tipped me off to his plan. The sky was clear so the lights were sparkling like jewels. He even wore a tie and told me to wear a dress. He was nervous the whole night. He stuttered a lot and was being twitchy with his hands. But then he finally worked up the courage to do it. He looked over at me from across our small table as we sipped champagne. He said I was beautiful. There was a candle in the center of our table and it was flickering off of those hazel blue eyes in a way I couldn’t possibly forget.

“Just do it already,” he said after telling me I was beautiful. My eyebrows creased in confusion.

“Do what?” I asked him. He shook his head and laughed as he ran his fingers through his blond curls.

“I was thinking out loud,” he explained.

“What were you thinking about?”

“About—” He took a deep breath and reached into the front pocket of his jacket. Then he set a small velvet box on the table between us. “I was thinking about asking you something.” I wasn’t surprised. But I was excited.

“You can ask me anything,” I told him. He reached over and lifted the lid with trembling fingers. There was a small ring inside with an even smaller diamond. It was all he could really afford on his almost nonexistent salary. I figured he must have used his rent money to pay for even that. But of course, I thought it was the most perfect ring in the whole universe.

“Will you marry me?” he asked quietly.

I couldn’t answer right away, but then I looked up at his nerve-stricken face. A line had appeared between his eyebrows. He had puppy dog eyes. I swear he wasn’t even breathing. So I smiled and said, “Of course.”

He climbed out of his seat, bent down on one knee, and slid the ring onto my finger. We were going to get married. We were going to be a family. We were actually making a solid plan to spend the rest of our lives together. And once I said yes he seemed to relax. He gave me his goofy smile and I reached down to kiss him.

We got married six months later. We had been married for just over a year when he disappeared from a grocery store parking lot and left nothing behind but an empty car and a brown paper bag full of canned soup and cold medicine. And me—with my heart full of tiny little fractures.