It takes her a second to register what it is. Then her eyes widen. I take her hand and drop it in her palm. I haven’t quite decided if I’m showing her just to let her know how serious I am about our future or if I’m actually proposing. Again.

Her eyes start to fill, and her expression is confused and hopeful. It’s then I decide what this will be. I’m perfectly aware that this is exactly the opposite of giving time and space. I’m prepared for a second no, but honestly, I’m prepared for a third and fourth as well. I can wait for her.

But she needs to know that I’m here now if she wants me. “There’s an inscription,” I tell her softly. I hear her breath catch as she reads what I’ve had added. I give you all of me.

I fall to my knee. “I realized something about the last time I asked this.” I haven’t prepared anything, but the words come easily. “I did it wrong. First, I didn’t have a ring, and second, I should have gotten on one knee. But more importantly, I didn’t give you the right thing. I offered you everything I had, thinking that was the way to win your heart. That wasn’t what you wanted at all. The only thing you ever asked for, the only thing I would never give you, was me.”

She tries to swallow back a gasp, but it comes out anyway.

“But now I do.” I throw my arms open wide. “Here I am, precious. I give myself freely. All of me, Alayna. No more walls or secrets or games or lies. I give you all of me, honestly. For forever, if you’ll take it.” It’s the most na**d that I’ve ever been. The most vulnerable. And the absolutely most honest.

I take the ring from her and slip it onto her shaking hand. Or is it mine that’s shaking? No, I don’t think so. For the first time ever, I feel completely steady.

She stares at it, the reflection of the ring seemingly sparkling in her eyes. She’s an open book, and each doubt and worry cross the landscape of her face. But in the end, it’s affection that settles on her features. Love deeper than any that has ever been shown to me.

I’m certain that she can see the same on my face. My mask is down. My feelings apparent. But I’ll speak them as well. “Alayna, I love you.”

She moves her gaze from the ring to meet my eyes. God, how they find me. I’m forever found in her, and though I’m prepared to wait, I hope and pray that I won’t have to anymore. “Will you marry me? Not today, and not in Vegas, but in a church if you like, or at Mabel Shores in the Hamptons—”

“Or the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens during the cherry blossom season?”

“Yes, there.” She has excellent taste. And then it hits me what she’s said. “Is that a—”

“Yes.” She nods. “It’s a yes.”

***

Alayna loves being engaged.

She’s worn the ring a month, and she still shows it to everyone. Even our doorman has been forced to fawn over it. The other night, I double-tipped the Chinese take-out deliveryman because he stayed for seven minutes after I’d paid just to listen to her go on about her diamond. If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I’d suspect she only said yes so she could wiggle her finger in front of people.

But since I do know her, I understand her compulsion to cling on to the object of her affection and parade it possessively. It’s behavior that drove others away from her, which is something I can never understand. I thrive on her attention. I respond to it in kind. We tangle ourselves together with our need to belong to each other. And our love grows stronger through it. More sure.

Along with my twice-weekly meetings with Dr. Alberts, we see a couple’s counselor every Monday. Dr. Lucille Parns. She insists that we call her Lucy. For Alayna’s sake, I actually succumb to the nickname. I’d worried at first that Lucy would frown upon my and Alayna’s attachment. Call it unhealthy. Surprisingly, she doesn’t. Instead she nurtures the aspects that have worked as strengths in our relationships. She encourages our high-level infatuation and our sex life as a means to connect.

Not that Lucy would have any impact on our sex life. I can’t keep my hands off Alayna, and fortunately, she can’t seem to keep her hands off me either.

Despite what we have going for us, Lucy does expect a lot of work. She focuses on our lack of communication and trust. It’s a mystery to me how I can be determined to share everything with Alayna now, and yet, when Lucy presses us, it’s still so hard to be that transparent. “Old habits die hard,” she reminds us. Then she assigns us a new exercise that sounds easy and proves to be a struggle.

Tonight, our assignment is full disclosure. From me. Though Alayna has figured out the basics of my games with Celia and my scheme regarding her, I’ve never told her all of it. Alayna’s not even entirely sure she wants to hear it.

But Lucy has insisted on it. “Alayna’s already forgiven you,” she’d said. “Use that knowledge to erase any fears you have. But there’s no way for you—for both of you—to put this fully to rest without letting light into every corner of this darkness.”

So this is the night we’ve chosen for my confession—exactly one month after she accepted my proposal. My chef prepared a dinner that we ate together by candlelight on our brand new dining table. We still don’t have living room furniture, and summer’s quickly flying away, so after our meal we take advantage of this warm evening and move to the balcony.

The new outdoor furniture is better cushioned than the set I’d had before, yet I can’t get comfortable in my seat. Alayna offers me a drink, but I turn it down. I don’t want to suppress any emotions that come from this confession. It may not be easy, but I want to feel all of it with her.

She angles her chair to face me head on and curls her feet underneath her. She doesn’t pressure me to start, and we sit for several long minutes in silence. Then I begin.

I start with the emotionally closed-off young man I’d been, the man who wanted to understand the relationships he was missing out on because of his lack of feeling. I tell her how he experimented on people he knew. How he experimented on his closest friend and turned her into a hateful, bitter woman.

I tell it all—how I’d kissed Celia, how I’d f**ked her friend, how she’d f**ked my father, how she’d gotten pregnant. All of it.

Alayna doesn’t interrupt. She listens intently, her expression changing with the particularly disturbing details. It isn’t until I tell her about the night of the symposium, the night I’d first seen her and my life instantly changed, that the tears start. They’re sweet tears that fall quietly down her face. They make it harder for me to go on to the part where I betrayed her. But I do. I tell her all the things I thought and felt, and how I convinced myself I was doing something good, but I always knew that it was wrong.