Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 75720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
It gave us some peace, let us breathe a little easier. The world was still a fucked-up place, evident by the alert on our phones, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy the good parts either. Being together was one of those good parts. One of the best parts, honestly. Noah was the best thing to have ever happened to me, no matter what we had to go through to get to where we were. I would have done all that and more if it meant getting to wake up next to Noah every morning of every day, telling him how much I loved him while spending nights like these together.
“Come,” I said, leaning in and kissing him. I felt good about tonight. There was a certain magic in the air (and it wasn’t because of the brownies). “Let’s get lost in some lights.”
I held his hand as we walked down a path that had lights dangling down from the overhanging branches, making it seem like we were swimming through an ocean of stars. On the other side of it was a glass-blown fountain where dozens of lit-up benches were placed around it, each bench shining under bright white light, shifting as a wave of blue went through the circle.
We sat there for a couple of minutes, watching as a column of light shot up from the center of the fountain, fracturing the light into a hundred different colors.
“You’re seeing this, too, right?” I asked, suddenly becoming paranoid that the brownie had been too strong.
“Yes, yes I am.” More giggling, chuckling. I put my arm around Noah’s shoulders, and he laid his head down against me. I smiled, my fingers making soft trails on his arm.
“I love you, Noah.” I kissed him, his lips fitting perfectly against mine.
“I love you, too, babe.”
We drifted in a relaxing silence as people came in and out of my periphery, admiring the prism that appeared to be floating in midair, circled by a continuous wave of blue light. It hypnotized me, lulling me.
That was when Noah looked at his watch and shot up from the bench. “Crap. Crap, crap, shit.” His outburst startled a couple sitting on the bench across from us.
“What happened?” I asked, worried at the sudden barrage of curses.
“I totally lost track of time. We’re going to miss the special show at the Earth Mother. Come on.” Noah grabbed my hand and tugged me up onto my feet. Before I could ask another question—mainly: there was a special Earth Mother show?—Noah already had us running down the path, nearly tripping over a child who was trying to break free from the leash that was wrapped around his mother’s wrist.
“You know, I always wonder if kids shouldn’t be…” My train of thought trailed off as we turned a corner, coming up on the Earth Mother’s garden.
It was breathtaking. I’d never been at night, with the entire garden lit up, so I’d never seen how stunning the huge floral sculpture could look when the tendrils of bright green hair were glowing with light, subtly changing colors. Her eyes were lit up as well and appeared to move, giving her an entirely new sense of life, something that not even being draped in living flowers could have done. Water cascaded from her open palm and fell into the pond, shining like the rest of the garden.
“Wow,” I said, Noah and I finding a spot by the railing and squeezing in between two other lovestruck couples. I could only get that singular word out before we both became entranced, falling under the Earth Mother’s spell.
There was a dark wall of ivy behind her, conspicuously lacking any kind of spotlight. Across the wall, words started to appear as if written by an invisible hand in curving, white letters. I cocked my head, surprised. None of the other exhibits had a written element to them. It started off in a slow scrawl, drawing everyone’s attention.
The first three letters had me cocking my head.
J.
A.
K.
That was weird. The strokes of light were spelling out my name. Was there some kind of interactive thing going on tonight? Did they take my name from my ticket purchase? Or maybe it was another Jake… wait a second.
The rest of the words filled up the wall of trailing ivy:
“Will you marry me?”
I blinked a couple of times, trying to get the words to make sense in my head. This had to be a joke, had to be for someone else. It couldn’t be… I turned to Noah, and—he wasn’t there.
He was behind me, down on one knee, smiling up at me with tears welling in his eyes, shining like jewels from all the glittering lights. Everyone else faded away. The entire world disappeared as Noah spoke.
“Jake, you’re my everything. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, listening to you quoting Cats and sometimes snoring in your sleep.” He gave me a wink.