Page 104 of Collins
Collins sinks down onto one knee.
Time pauses.
A small black box appears between us, held carefully in his hand, containing something fragile.
Something sacred.
A broken sound rips from my chest, and there’s no stopping it. I can’t stop the way I gasp for air, the way sobs spill out of me in uneven, uncontrollable waves.
“Johnnie,” he starts, and even my name sounds different coming from him now. It holds more weight than ever before, like it means everything.
“I know this is still new…” His voice catches, emotion laced in every word. “But it’s not. It’s not new. This, us, we started a long time ago.”
My chest aches so sharply I press my hand harder against it, like I can contain my heart before it shatters right out of me.
“And when you know…” His breath shakes, a tear slipping free, trickling down his cheek. “When you know who you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want to start the rest of your life as soon as you can.”
I’m crying so hard I can barely see him. But I don’t need to.
I feel him.
“I love you so damn much.”
The words land somewhere in the core of my being, somewhere permanent.
A soft, breathless laugh breaks through his emotion, sudden and human and so him, it almost undoes me more than anything else.
“I might’ve stolen some of that from a Dierks Bentley song.”
Even now.
Even here.
His cheeks flush, actually flush. Color rising under the soft glow of the lights, visible even in the dimness. And that’s it. That’s the moment I almost completely fall apart.
Because he’s still Collins.
Still mine.
He looks up at me, eyes shining, hand steady despite everything.
“Marry me?”
Everything yields. Every memory, every second that led me here, collides all at once. My gaze drifts past him, pulled for just a moment to the trailer behind him. Nan’s trailer.
A place that holds history. Love. Loss. Roots.
Home.
I draw in a deep, shaking breath, my chest expanding like it’s finally allowed to.
And then I smile.
Wider than I ever have in my entire life. So wide it hurts.
“Yes.”
It bursts out of me—certain, immediate, everything.
