They seem to know better than to touch me.
In the distance, I hear Winston clap his hands. “All right, everyone, we’re basically here. Juliette, will you and Warner pl— Wait, where’s Juliette?”
“I’m back here!”
“Why the hell are you back there?” Kenji cries.
I hear faint grumbling from Winston, more exasperated words from Kenji; all this is followed by soothing sounds made by their partners. The sequence would be comical if I were in any mood to laugh.
Instead, I have turned to stone.
“We’ll be right there!” Ella reassures them. “You can start setting up without us!”
“Set up without you? If I find out this was your plan all along, princess, Nazeera is going to kick your ass.”
“I absolutely won’t,” she calls out cheerfully. “In fact, I fully support the two of you tearing off each other’s clothes, if that’s what you’ve got planned!”
“Oh my God, Nazeera—”
“What?”
“Don’t encourage them,” Kenji and Winston shout at the same time.
“Why not?” Brendan says. “I think it’s romantic.”
They bicker a bit more while my mind spins. I feel the outline of the box against my leg more acutely than ever, a square spot of heat against my skin.
This is happening out of order.
I manage to comfort myself with the reminder that everything about us has unfolded in an unconventional way; I shouldn’t be too surprised to discover that, here, too, things are not going to plan.
Then again, I didn’t really have a plan.
In an ideal scenario, I would’ve proposed to her with the ring; she should’ve already had it on her finger. Instead, we are now fast approaching our actual wedding and I’ve yet to give it to her. And while it occurs to me that I could find a way to evade her curiosity right now, I’m not sure there’s any point in prolonging it. I have no idea where we’re going. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
I might not even have time later to do this properly.
I swallow, hard, trying to force back my apprehension. I don’t know why I’m so nervous.
That’s not true.
I know why I’m nervous. I’m worried she’s going to hate it, and I don’t know what I’ll do if she hates it. I suppose I’ll have to return it. I’ll have to marry her without a ring, acknowledging all the while that I am an idiot of astronomical proportions, one who couldn’t even manage to pick out a decent ring for his fiancée.
This imagining inspires in me a wave of dread so severe I close my eyes against the force of it.
“Aaron,” Ella says, and my eyes fly open, bringing me back to the present.
She is smiling at me.
Ella, I realize, already knows what’s in the box.
Somehow, this makes me more nervous. I look around myself, searching for calm, and register a beat too late that we’re all alone. The crowd has dispersed into the distance beyond us, and as I watch them disappear—their bodies growing smaller by the second—I recognize only then that I have no idea where we are.
I take stock of our surroundings: there are paved roads and sidewalks not far away, wilting trees planted at regular intervals. The air smells different—sharper—and the sun seems brighter, unencumbered by dense woods. I hear that familiar trill of birdsong and search the sky again, trying to orient myself. My mind searches itself for maps, blueprints, old information. This area looks less wild than the Sanctuary, stripped back. I feel quite certain we must be encroaching upon old, unregulated territory, but as we still appear to be within the boundary of Nouria’s protections, that can’t be possible. The lights that delineate our space from the outside world are clearly visible.
“Where are we?” I ask. For a moment, my nerves are forgotten. “This isn’t—”
“We can get to that in just a second,” Ella says, still smiling. She drops the homemade tiara to the ground and steps forward, drawing her hand slowly up my thigh, tracing a faint circle around the impression of the box. “But first, I feel like I have no choice but to make a terrible joke about finding something hard in your pants.”
I drag a hand down my face, vaguely mortified. “Please don’t.”
Ella fights to be serious, biting her lip to keep from smiling. She mimes locking her mouth, tossing the key.
I actually laugh then, after which I sigh, staring for a moment into the distance.
“So. What’s in the box?” she asks, her joy so bright it’s blinding. “Is it for me?”