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“I don’t mean like that.”
“Oh,” he said. “I was waiting for you. I looked up the medicine you’re on and saw all of the side effects. I didn’t want you to think you had to worry about me, especially since you thought that I’d ask you for that when I was sick.”
“You said you wanted to do it a thousand times. Why wait?”
“Because I wantyouto want it.”
“I do.But after seeing me like that?—”
“I still love you. For better or worse. That’s what a marriage means.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, emotion clogging up my throat. “Love, huh?”
“Yes, darling. I love you. Even when you’re sick, and every second in between.”
A single tear rolled down my cheek. I’d waited for this moment. I didn’t know I had, but there was the truth. It was why I kept picking up books that could make me feel a mere fraction of what love could be.
And now I had it. I really had it.
“You were always here, huh?” I asked. “Right in front of me.”
“Yes.”
I saw it all through a new lens.
And old confusion finally cleared up. Everything from why he bought the ring to rushing me to the hospital made sense.
I finally understood.
And I wanted to move on, but I had one more question.
“There’s no more secrets between us, right?”
“Not that I know of. But if I think of any, I’ll tell you.”
I nodded, but I still wondered what could be waiting out there.
“Wait, I thought of one.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t like tomatoes.”
“What? But you said you would try my salsa when the plants grow.”
“And I will, but I hate the vegetable.”
“It’s a fruit.”
“That’s a technicality.”
“If that’s your secret, then I guess I can live with it.”
“I have more.”
“What are they?”
“First, I knew you hated chocolate cake when Emma told me. You mentioned it all those years ago on your birthday.”