Page 25 of The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain
With Sebastian, all the parts of me that had felt unacceptable before suddenly made sense.
I’d finally found someone who fit even less into a mold than I did.
He was the complete opposite of my first fiancé, Liam, the golden boy who’d wanted to wrap me up and put me in a box.
That relationship had been all perfectly posed photos and stiff smiles hiding a silent scream.
But with Seb, it was freedom and fun and anything goes.
The constant self-doubt that had plagued me during my time with Liam finally began to fade.
No more forced smiles or hiding the messy, complicated parts of myself.
I started to embrace my quirks, my passions, the things that made me me .
Suddenly, the world felt bigger, brighter, full of possibilities.
I wasn’t afraid to try new things, to speak my mind, to chase my dreams, even if they seemed a little crazy.
Sebastian had given me back the courage to be myself, and that changed everything.
From that night on, we were together—even though we weren’t always physically together.
Seb became the photographer he dreamed about being, and his passion took him all over the world.
But even through the tensions of long distance, through all the breakups and makeups, I allowed myself to begin to imagine a life where Seb and I were each other’s forever.
T HE PROPOSAL CAME TWO years after that first Hamptons meeting, when we were on a trip to Key West, a last little vacation before Seb started the new job in Tokyo. We stayed in a white Craftsman bungalow with acid-green shutters and spent the week drinking mojitos and eating fried conch.
On the last day, we decided to spend the afternoon on a boat, hopping from island to island. Sebastian had been blasting Jimmy Buffett from the speakers “ironically,” but my father has always loved Jimmy Buffett completely unironically, so I did too.
Sebastian killed the engine on the boat, and we drifted for a few minutes until he dropped the anchor a few dozen yards off the coast of a small island. I climbed up onto the edge of the boat, about to jump into the water, my hand braced on the ladder that led to the platform above the helm.
The music cut off, and Sebastian asked, “Do you think you could live like this forever?”
I turned to face him but didn’t leave my perch on the side of the boat. “Are you asking if I could drink rum and frolic on a beach for the rest of my life? Absolutely. Hard yes.”
He left the steering wheel to stand behind me, putting both hands on my hips.
I turned to face him. He was still on the deck, and I was on the ledge, so he had to tilt his head up at me, and his eyes, which were always spectacular, seemed even bluer after days in the sun had left his skin tanned and even more golden highlights in his hair.
“Seriously. Could you live like this? Moving from place to place without a home base?”
Without a home base. It sent a little shiver of uncertainty through me.
I’d spent so much of my life feeling like that.
Every time my emotions got too big as a kid or my passions too intense as a teenager, my parents looked at me like I was an alien.
Of course, that house was home, technically, but I didn’t always feel at home.
Some part of me had been seeking that feeling ever since.
But as I looked at Seb, I thought, maybe a person can be your home base .
My hands came to his shoulders. “I could do anything as long as I was with you.” I leaned forward and kissed him chastely on the lips. Then I spun around and leapt into the water.
When I returned to the surface, I turned back toward the boat, treading water. “Come catch me,” I taunted and started kicking my way to shore.
Seconds later, there was a splash behind me, and Sebastian, with his strong arms and legs, reached me in moments.
We clomped onto the beach, and he caught me around my waist again, pulling me to him.
He kissed me, and this time, there was nothing chaste about the kiss.
He lowered me to the sand and made love to me slowly, like I was something worth discovering.
Afterward, we lay there for a while, the surf lapping at our feet.
Sebastian reached for a strand of seaweed and pulled my hand to him.
He started winding the seaweed around my ring finger, and I felt tears pricking my eyes.
It was just so us . “Sybil, I can’t imagine ever finding someone else as magnificent as you.
You’re a force of nature, and I love you.
” He tied the seaweed off and kissed my knuckle.
Then his eyes held mine. “Would you stay? Forever?”
I pulled his face to mine and kissed him. I didn’t ever say yes; we both knew my answer.
He hadn’t been wrong—I was a force of nature.
And so was he. It was what we loved about each other, but how could we have ever thought that was sustainable?
Soon enough, the undertow of life got the best of us, pulled us out to sea, and what had seemed so spontaneous and free about our relationship turned to chaos, that almost-drowning feeling when you desperately want someone to be there for you, and they simply can’t be.
But in that moment, all I could see was Sebastian. And the person I was when I was with him.
Someone wild, and precious, and alive.