Chapter 6: The Ring

Breckin went down on one knee on the bricks.

Somebody on the second floor whistled.

Doors were opening all around the courtyard.

People came out onto the balconies in pajamas and hoodies, holding phones and cereal bowls.

It was one in the morning, and he'd made sure the whole building woke up for it.

"Kensley Cowan," he said, loud enough for the third floor.

His voice did the little catch it did on stage before a big note.

"I've been an idiot. I let this town get in my head. I let other people get in between us."

"Other people," Emmylou said behind me. "Wow."

"We've been through everything together," Breckin said. "Our songs. Our dreams. I can't do any of it without you."

That was the truest thing he'd ever said to me.

"Marry me," he said. "Let's stop fighting and write the rest of our lives."

A woman on the second floor said, "Aww."

The paper lanterns swayed on their strings over his head.

White paper.

No blue moons.

He hadn't even read that far.

In my first life I said yes in a parking lot and cried so hard my mascara ran into my mouth.

I wore that ring for six years.

I took it off once, to knead my grandmother's biscuit dough, and he didn't notice for a month.

I looked at it now in its little velvet bed.

"No," I said.

The courtyard went quiet.

Breckin's smile held.

"Kenz. Baby. You're upset. Let's go upstairs and talk."

"No," I said again. "And you're not going upstairs."

"You don't mean that."

"I've never meant anything more in my life," I said. "Either of them."

Somebody laughed on the third floor and then tried to cover it with a cough.

Breckin got up off his knee.

He brushed the brick dust off his good pants.

He turned so the balconies could see his face.

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