Page 14 of The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain

When people asked where I went to school—like Jamie had when we first met—it was easy to rattle off USC.

Because I had gone there… I just never got my diploma.

The fact that I never graduated wasn’t something I offered up freely.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of good reasons why a person might drop out of school, or not go to college at all.

The problem was, I didn’t have any of those good reasons.

A week before graduation, my ex-boyfriend Liam had shown up at my dorm, drunk, spewing the same hateful things that had driven me to break up with him three years earlier.

With the help of Nikki and campus security, I’d gotten him to leave.

But the experience had shaken me so much that I ended up spiraling into a depressive state.

When my parents arrived for graduation weekend, they found me in bed crying, having missed all my final exams. The disappointment on their faces still haunts me.

I had let myself fall apart because of a boy, which was the really mortifying part.

Especially given the impressive, high-powered career women in Jamie’s family (in addition to his sister being a judge, Jamie’s mother was a partner in a white-shoe law firm).

I stood there, in Jamie’s childhood bedroom, feeling his eyes boring a hole in the crown of my head. Finally, he spoke.

“Sybil…” His voice was strained. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you didn’t graduate?”

“Because I knew you’d think less of me—”

“I wouldn’t. I don’t.”

“—and clearly I wouldn’t measure up to your perfect family.”

“How many credits were you short?” Jamie asked, ignoring my barb and transitioning swiftly into problem-solving mode. “Maybe you could go back and—”

“I don’t need you to fix me, Jamie.”

I pulled away from his grasp and crossed toward the closet, looking for something warm to put on.

“What are you doing?” Jamie asked.

“Grabbing a jacket. I need to go outside and get some air.”

“We’re in the middle of a conversation, Sybil.”

“A conversation? Sounds more like a fight to me.” My eyes landed on Jamie’s Barbour coat—the one he’d been wearing on the drive up. I reached for it, and in an instant, Jamie was at my side.

“Forget the jacket; we need to talk about this.”

“Fine. I just need a second to clear my head.” I began to slip my arm into the jacket’s right sleeve, but then Jamie was pulling at the left one.

“What the hell, Jamie?” He had never been territorial over his clothes before.

He was the king of boyfriend sweatshirts, always happy to lend me something to wear.

He even admitted once how hot he thought it was, the sight of me in his clothes. So why was he acting so weird now?

“Don’t take the jacket!” Jamie’s face was white.

“What is the big deal?”

“Just leave it—”

And with that, Jamie tugged, and I let go, and suddenly, the jacket was flung across the room, something small dislodging from one of the pockets and landing with a thud on Jamie’s childhood bed.

For a moment, we both just stared.

Then my brain whirred to life, putting the pieces together.

It wasn’t just any small item. It was a small box. A small velvet box.

“Is that…”

Jamie hastily crossed the room and grabbed the ring box, stuffing it into his pants pocket, his expression unreadable.

I turned my back on Jamie and the little black velvet box, as if removing them from my field of vision could make this whole moment disappear. “I’ll just, um… I can forget I saw that. Whatever it was.”

I was giving Jamie an out. Surely he wouldn’t want to talk about marriage now—in the middle of a fight, during which it was revealed that not only was I a college dropout, but also I’d been lying to him about it for the length of our relationship.

“Sybil.” Jamie’s voice was soft now, and there was something almost plaintive in his tone that made me turn around.

And when I did, I found him down on one knee in front of me. He was holding the box, which was now open to reveal the most beautiful, sparkling diamond I’d ever seen.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Sybil, you were right. My family did suck tonight. They’re just overly protective of me.

I’ll talk to them. They’ll do better. And anyway, fuck what they say.

” A little shiver ran down my arms. I loved it when Jamie let out a swear; it happened so rarely.

“I want to marry you. I hadn’t meant to do it like this, but none of this changes how I feel about you. ”

“It doesn’t change how I feel about you either,” I said quietly. “But Jamie, are you really sure you want to be with me… forever ?”

Jamie reached out one of his hands to grasp my own.

“Sybil, when I’m with you, I feel like I’ve caught lightning in a bottle.

You bring color to my world. You have the biggest heart, and you feel things more strongly than anyone I’ve ever known, and it’s contagious.

I’ve spent my whole life doing what was expected of me, following the path they’ve laid out for me.

My family may not be pleased at first, but we’ll deal with that later.

Right now, all I know is you make me feel happier and more alive than I’ve felt in a long time, and I never want to lose that. I never want to lose you.”

Despite the disaster the evening had turned into, it moved me that his family’s bad opinion of me hadn’t swayed him.

At the time, it seemed like a sign, like maybe we really could be strong enough to overcome that.

I’d been engaged twice before, and both of those relationships had spiraled out of control before we made it anywhere near the altar.

But this felt so different. It had to be different.

I knew how much I loved him. And I wanted to believe in us, to believe it could work this time.

I wanted, above all, to believe that I deserved the love of someone like Jamie.

Which was why I looked into his warm brown eyes and said yes.