He inhales softly as the cool wind lingers through the air. Looking at the endless sky he loses himself and forgets about the stench surrounding the air for just a moment. She slightly tugs on his sleeve, "why are we here? It smells funny and it’s scary here".
He smiles gently and calmly reassures her, "because I’m going to make this place a moment you will never forget".
"Are you going to kill me?" she half jokingly asks.
He always did love her innocent humor. It was after all, what he loved about her.
"No, of course not. It’s something more".
She looks down on the broken concrete and stares at the white stripes painted across the pavement. There's an old abandoned building to the corner barely visible enough to make out. The parking lot they stood in was covered in debris of leaves and trash from the nearby trees and dumpsters spray painted by the neighborhood teenagers.
"But I don't see anything so special about this place, how long do we have to stay here?"
"Don’t worry", he said. "I know it feels strange standing here in the cold, but we're here for a reason and it'll all make sense. I just know it will" She catches a buried emotion hiding behind his words.
He brushes her bangs out of her face, moving away from his last comment. He picks up a tattered leaf lying next to his feet. The leaf had flakes of green and orange. Looking more like bits of grass, the leaf was in shambles with barely enough strength to stay intact by the stem.
"You see this tree leaf; it used to be so beautiful. People often overlook these simple beauties, but just because it’s not in its perfect shape anymore doesn't mean it is any less special. We have to remember to see the beauty in all things." he extends his right arm out and waves it out as if he was letting her pass.
"Look at everything around you, it used to be bright and populated. Cars would park here, gardeners would take care of the trees, and people would walk in and out of that building. But like everything in this world, it gets used and worn out."
She could only smile. It was his ideas that she loved, how he would always have something to express, something to share with her, despite how often it was just plain ole common sense. She wondered what his true purpose was for him to bring her out here. All the major holidays were distant and their 3rd year anniversary passed months ago. Was it another one of his wacky ideas to be spontaneous? She questioned his shaky behavior. He was pensive and a little too serious than she was used to. She wondered if he was going through a hard time.
"Your shoes are untied" she says to him, pointing at his shoes. "I’ll tie it for you".
She bends down and grabs the laces from the ground. Lifting up one lace and then the other, she remembers the "loop, swoop, and pull" technique her father used to teach her as a child. "Hey there's something in the ground" her eyes peer at the cracked pavement between his feet.
"I think someone dropped something!" she stares deeper into the crevice and grabs it.
She pulls out a ring and raises it like a trophy. "We should return this" she always was compassionate about others. She never wanted to hurt anybody and did her best to do the right thing.
"You’re right!" he says, "Something so valuable like a ring should not be used as another person’s jewelry." "I bet this ring was meant for something more and we should honor that". He grabs the ring from her hand "here, I'll make sure to give it to the owner and see that this ring goes to where it was intended."
He slowly reaches for her hand. The warmth of her skin felt like he was touching a part of her soul. He lifts her hand and places the ring on her finger. She looks at him with eyes brighter than the moon, glimmering like a set of diamonds on display.
"I love you” he says. “And I don't need to take you across the world just to say it. Because it doesn't matter where we are, we can be anywhere in the world, and it'll be just as special. And if you do feel like the luckiest girl in the whole wide world, standing in this cold deserted run down parking lot, then I know that you were meant for me.
That we belong together.
And that this ring is meant for you.
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