Page 73 of We Drank the Dawn

“No.” He stood his ground. “You can’t go through that stuff.”

“Because you’re hiding something?”

“Of course I’m not hiding anything.” He flipped his blinker on, somehow driving with complete smoothness, despite being stretched over the console. “I just need you to not open it.”

“Well, it can’t be a birthday present, because my birthday isn’t for months.” I crossed my arms.

He nodded once. “It is your birthday present.”

“Liar.”

He sighed. “I’m not lying, Sarah. I have never lied to you.”

“Then give it to me early.”

He shot me a look. “Sarah⁠—”

“Seriously. I want it now.”

The car bumped as he suddenly veered into a McDonald’s parking lot. Peter whipped into a space and threw the car in park, doing it all one handed because he knew I’d open that thing as soon as he removed his hand. When the motor had fallen quiet, he turned to me with a wild look in his eye. “I need you to put aside your suspicion right now and just trust me, okay?”

I looked straight into his eyes.

Against my will, those big brown eyes disarmed me. “Okay,” I finally whispered.

“Okay?” He asked, double checking.

“Okay.” I confirmed, crossing my arms over my chest.

With a long exhale, he sat back too, rubbing his palms over his thighs. “You ready to tell me why you’re crying?”

“You should already know,” I whispered.

“Well…” He lifted a hand in a shrug. “I don’t.”

My lips trembled as I held back the flood of words and emotions burning a path up my throat. I didn’t want to unload on him, but the sleeping bear had staggered out of its den and I was ready to fight. “I thought you were going to ask me.”

Peter’s long exhale told me he was tracking now. His response was quiet. “I see.”

“And the fact that you didn’t, and now you’re hiding something from me…I don’t know, Peter. I’m starting to think you’re never going to ask. That you’ll be happy forever with me as your permanent girlfriend.” Now that the ball was rolling, I had a lot to say. “But I don’t want that. My friends told me to give you an ultimatum, which I thought was stupid, but now I feel like I don’t have a choice. There’s nothing to wait on anymore. If you’re not going to marry me, we shouldn’t keep acting like a married couple. Maybe we should break up or something and⁠—”

Peter got out of the car, and I scowled at him for not listening to me. But he came around to my door and opened it. I thought he was going to demand me to get out, but instead he knelt on the asphalt beside the car and reached for the glove box.

Tapping it open, he fished around and pulled out a little red velvet box.

My heart stopped.

Burying my face in my hands, I burst into uncontrollable sobs.

Peter gently pulled my hands away from my face. “Sarah⁠—”

“That better be—what I think—it is.”

“Look at me.”

Slowly, my eyes flicked to his, and I had to blink repeatedly to clear my vision.

He looked at the tiny box between his fingers then back at me. His voice shook, too. “If you only knew how many conversations I’ve had with my dad, mom, and therapist about this.” He shook the box a little. “I’ve hardly thought of anything else. I’ve been sick about the fact that I want to ask but feel like I can’t. That I want you as my wife but am so scared⁠—”