“You see all this my crazy-ass beautiful girl? I actually freaking lit candles, set up dinner and everything.”

I drag the camera around, filming it all.

“I bet you’re going to be happy I finally found a use for my birthday camera. No matter what happens tonight, you will always be mine, with my love, to infinity.”

Her sweet voice comes on.

“Tristan? What is all this”? I set the camera on the stand, focusing it on her.

“Tristan, what are you doing?”

Here comes the longest speech of my life.

“My crazy-ass beautiful girl, I love you. I promise to love only you. I promise to remember only you. I promise to marry only you. I promise to make love only to you. I promise there will be no one else but you. I know we are young and we have our entire lives ahead of us, but I can’t wait anymore. I need to make this promise to you now.”

I drop to one knee, pulling out a ring box.

“Tristan! Oh shit, what did you do?” She gasps, throwing a hand over her mouth.

I look over at Evelyn and she is staring at the T.V, not making any movements. Her face has paled and it doesn’t even look like she’s breathing. I don’t like that.

“There are a million reasons why I love you, but it would take forever to name them so I will just say a few. I love how you love me as if our lives depend on it. I love your laugh, your voice, your touch. I love how when you get mad at me you don’t throw a fit; you simmer down and fix us. I love how you treat my brother as your own. I love how you call my parents Mom and Dad. I love you for taking one of my most embarrassing moments and turning it into something funny. I love how you just roll with everything. I love how smart you are. I love how beautiful you are but the main reason I love you is for how special you are to me.

“There is no one in this entire world but you that I could love. I was meant to ogle you and hit you with that volleyball and I will never apologize for that again. So will you marry me my crazy-ass beautiful girl? It doesn’t have to be right now; I just want this promise, the promise that one day you and I will spend the rest of our lives together.”

It goes quiet.

“You promise to love me and only me forever?” She whispers in awe.

“I promise.” My voice lets her know just how serious I am.

“Yes, I’ll marry you.” She jumps on me and takes me down to the sand with her. “I love you so much!” She says as she showers kisses over my face.

“I love you too.” I say as I slip the ring onto her finger and then kiss her lightly on the lips. “Hold on!” My voice booms loudly.

I wiggle out of her grasp and get up to grab the camera off the stand.

“She said yes!” I yell excitedly into the camera. “This is the end of the video. We’ll have more for you later.”

The television screen goes blank.

“That was the last video we made because you left a week later. You had a real bad headache and your parents thought you needed glasses. You left early to go to the eye doctor.”

Evelyn turns slowly towards me. She is silently sobbing. Her body is shaking and her hands are trembling violently as she holds her ring. “Do you still regret making that promise?” Her voice cracks.

Fuck no! I am such an idiot! “No,” I croak.

“Are you sure?” she whispers, setting her ring down slowly and carefully on the table.

“Yes,” There is no hesitation when I answer her.

“Good, because when I was at your bar and you said that,” she pauses, “it hurt right here.” She puts her hand over her heart. “I couldn’t figure out why, because I’ve only known you for a few days in my mind. Then I realized something. My brain may have forgotten you, but my heart hasn’t. It’s still yours if you want it.”

Wait! What?

“My heart is still yours. It still beats for you. It feels like it is pounding out of my chest right now. Crap, I’m not saying this very well.”

Tristan, breathe dude! Just breathe!

“What I’m trying to say is that this scares the hell out of me. I’m trying to find myself again and figure out who I am. Tristan, my heart already knows who you are. I love you. My heart is telling me I already love you and I don’t know what to do with that Tristan. I just don’t know.” Evelyn cries.

She loves me! It takes me a split second to get to her. I slam my lips to hers and pull her body against mine. God, those are the three words I have waited to hear from her again for four long years. This kiss is passionate with tears rolling down our faces. I can taste the saltiness of the tears mixed with the taste of Evelyn and I moan, grinning against her mouth. Everything I feel for her is in that kiss.

“I’m so glad you’re listening to your heart. I love you so much it hurts,” I whisper against her trembling lips. “I promised to never stop loving you. I may have been mad at you, but I promised to never stop loving you, and baby, I didn’t because I can’t.” I whisper causing her to whimper.

12

I whimper against his lips again when he says he never stopped loving me. His devotion to me is true. No matter how mad he was when he was seventeen, no matter how heartbroken he was, he never stopped loving me.

That night he took me to all the places we loved going to when we were younger, and we made love under the stars before heading back to the house. We needed to get some sleep before our long journey to the campus to enroll in our college courses. Tristan also needed to get back to the club and his band.