The Most Beautiful Face in the World

At 9:17 on the night Adrian Bell proposed, he left me alone beneath a hundred glass lanterns and ran toward the smoke rising over the water. I watched him cross the lawn in his dinner jacket, one hand already reaching for his phone. Then he was gone beyond the hedge, past the white tent where our guests had gathered, and down the path toward the Bell family boathouse. The band kept playing for four more seconds. I knew because I counted them. Then someone shouted that there was a fire. The music stopped. Conversation broke apart. Chairs scraped over the lawn as people stood and craned for a look. My brother, Owen, reached me before anyone else did. "Stay here," he said. "I'm not a child." "I know. That's why I'm asking, not ordering." Across the water, orange light shivered against the dark windows of the boathouse. I heard a siren in the distance. My fingers had closed around the ring Adrian had slipped onto my hand less than an hour earlier. It was a beautiful ring. A cushion-cut diamond, understated setting, exactly the kind of thing I would have chosen. I had spent weeks helping Adrian pretend the proposal would surprise me. I had picked the terrace, the flowers, the band, and the champagne. I had even arranged for the photographer to be tucked behind a climbing rose. I liked beautiful things. I had never seen a reason to apologize for that. I liked the way light moved across a cheekbone, the clean line of a suit, the way Adrian's smile could quiet a crowded room. In our first year together, I had sometimes caught myself looking at him instead of listening to him. I had mistaken that for love. Owen looked toward the boathouse. "I'll find out what's happening." He left me with the guests, who had stopped pretending not to watch me. A minute later, Adrian's name appeared on my screen. Adrian: Willa's inside. I'm going in. I called him at once. The call rang and rang. "Who's Willa?" asked Mrs. Delaney from the foundation board. Her hand covered her mouth, but her eyes were bright with curiosity. "She's a friend of Adrian's." The word sounded thin. Willa Hart had been Adrian's closest friend since they were children. She had grown up on the Bell estate, in the small guest cottage where her mother worked as a housekeeper. She was a talented cellist, a frequent guest at our family's holiday dinners, and the only person who could call Adrian at midnight and expect him to answer. I had never liked how easily she could do that. I had also never told Adrian so. Jealousy seemed ugly when I was standing beside a man who looked like Adrian. The sirens reached the drive. Owen returned from the gate, his expression fixed. "Fire crew's there," he said. "They're pulling people out." "Adrian?" "He went in." I tried the call again. This time, a paramedic answered. My first clear sight of Adrian after that came through the ambulance doors. He was sitting upright, a white blanket around his shoulders. There was soot in his hair. A strip of gauze covered his left cheek and temple. The medic held a light near his eyes while Adrian pushed it away. I ran to him. "Are you hurt?" He looked at me, and his right hand found mine. His left cheek was swollen beneath the bandage. "Willa's all right," he said. "She was in the back room. The smoke got bad." "You went inside?" "I heard her calling." The words should have been enough. They should have been everything. I looked at the ambulance, the paramedics, the lights washing the lawn red and white. My body was still cold from the night air, though I stood close enough to feel the warmth coming off him. "You're hurt," I said. "It's nothing." The medic gave him a look that contradicted him. "He has a burn and a deep cut. We need to take him in." Adrian turned back to me. "Come with me?" I glanced toward the tent. The guests were still there, their untouched glasses and half-eaten dinner under the lanterns. Our engagement cake stood on the table, decorated with sugared white flowers. "I'll meet you at the hospital." He squeezed my fingers. "Don't let them make a thing of this." The ambulance doors closed. I went to the hospital. Adrian's injury was worse than he had admitted. The cut ran from the side of his forehead toward his jaw, close to his eye. The doctor said the burn would heal, but the scar might not disappear. Adrian asked about Willa before he asked about himself. I waited until the doctor left. "Is she all right?" I asked. "They're treating her for smoke inhalation. She's shaken up." "You went in alone." "I didn't have time to think." "And the party?" He looked down at our joined hands. "I'm sorry." The apology was quiet and, in another setting, I might have found it moving. "You left me in front of everyone." "I know." "You didn't even tell me where you were going until you were already inside." "There was a fire." "I know there was a fire, Adrian." He lifted his face. A bright line of blood had dried near his eyebrow. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to put my mouth against the skin beside it and make the night look less frightening. Instead, I let go of his hand. Adrian stared at the space between us. "I'm still here," he said. "I can see that." "You're looking at me like I'm a stranger." I was looking at the bandage. The ring still flashed on my finger. "I don't know what I'm looking at yet." He leaned back against the hospital pillow. "You don't have to decide anything tonight." I had already decided one thing. I would not make his injury the most important part of what had happened. I would not turn his sacrifice into a story about my generosity, either. When I left the hospital, the engagement party was over. The photographer had sent one picture from the terrace: Adrian on one knee, his perfect profile tilted up toward mine, my hand over my mouth in an expression I had practiced in the mirror. I deleted it. Then I looked at the ring on my finger and waited for it to feel like a promise again. It didn't. *****