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“Come and get me Gordon! You couldn’t hit me if I was blind and deaf. Stop throwing like a girl and show me something!”

Gordon’s laughter reached my ears as he reacted to my taunts.  I rolled my eyes and was just in the process of bending down to make my own snowball when Gordon dropped what he had in his hand walked toward me.

“What are you doing? You’re crossing enemy lines. Are you giving up then?”

“No, I want to ask you something.”

“Ask me from your side.”

“No, this is something that I have to ask  you up close.”

“Wha-”

He dropped to one knee in the snow.

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Clasping my hands together I stared down at him with a frozen smile on my face. Please don’t be doing what I think you’re doing, I screamed inwardly. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t process it. Wasn’t this something that most couples discussed before heading into? Hadn’t he felt the distance I had been putting between us?

Obviously not, I answered myself as he dug in his pocket and pulled out a small box. I absently noticed that it wasn’t a blue Tiffany’s box which is where my ideal ring would come from but still.

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There was a ring nestled in that box. Staring me in my face. I brought my hands up to my face and blinked down at it.

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“LaTonya, I love you. I want to be the man who grows old with you. To be your strength when you’re weak. I have to have children with you. You’re my friend, my lover, my heart. Marry me please.”

As I looked from the ring to him I knew. I knew that he knew that I had been placing distance between us and this was his way of closing it. But should I reach across the yawning chasm and take the ring? Gordon was a decent man. Who was to say that someone better would come along? Should I settle? At the thought my chest tightened but it tightened even more at the thought of me hurting him.

Reaching out I took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto my finger.

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I steadied it a moment. This was the symbol of my commitment to Gordon. That I had chosen this man above any other.  The small diamond winked at me as Gordon straightened and clasped my hand in his.

“I love you LaTonya.”

I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his mouth.

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I would love him. I would, I promised myself.