“I was ashamed.”
“Well, I spent two years blaming my thighs, my wrinkles, my stomach and gravity.”
That actually made him laugh.
And strangely, hearing him laugh made me laugh harder.
Saturday evening, we still went to the hotel.
The surprise was already ruined, but I pretended not to know half of what he had planned.
Our children were there.
Old friends were there.
The same song we had danced to at our wedding began playing.
And inside that little black box was not some secret gift for another woman.
It was a new wedding ring for me.
Inside it, Robert had engraved three words:
Still choosing you.
That night, we went home together.
Nothing magically became perfect.
We didn’t suddenly become twenty-five again.
But for the first time in almost two years, Robert didn’t turn away from me.
He reached for my hand in the dark.
And we talked.
