The One

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Emily Bronte

When I turned the corner to the office, he was lying on the floor, arms down, looking like some sort of superhero flying through the air. My immediate reaction was, "I need to marry this guy." Something about the absurdness of the moment was so unexpected, as are most things he does when I walk into a room. He smiled and I smiled and I curled up next to him on the carpet.

I've never felt the "I need to marry this guy" feeling before. It's so different than anything else on earth. And though writers try to describe it, and though it turns non-writers into hopeful poets, I don't think anyone has really captured that kind of lightning into a bottle. And the first time I felt it for him...well, I need to back up.

The truth is, I've loved him that deeply since the first hug that night in Flora. But when he came back from Afghanistan and set down his bags in this apartment, he didn't take too long to tell my brother that he was thinking about buying a ring. Ironically, I found this out the one and only night we've been apart since he came home. I was sound asleep with covers over my head when my phone beeped. My brother had texted me after having some drinks. He told me what Sky had said. He asked me if that's what I wanted. And then he went to sleep.

I sat up in bed, turned on the light, and felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. This was not in a million years what I had anticipated. Sky and I weren't interested in marriage-right? We'd both told each other that. I had resigned myself to it, really-I even wrote poems about it- we'd live together, we'd have his kids with us. We'd never marry and we'd never have kids together. The concept of a ring on my finger was a curve ball.

I didn't sleep well that night, and when he came back the next day, I felt so many emotions, I probably couldn't ever name even half of them. The weekend went by smoothly until Sunday night. We were at my brother's house, and when we walked outside to go home, he grabbed my hand, looked at me, and said, "Let's go home, baby." It's nothing spectacular, and I don't know why it did what it did, but I sniffled the entire way home. By the time we got to the dark hallway at home, I held him and sobbed. It hit me suddenly that he could actually want to marry me. I realized if he asked, I'd say yes.

Through a couple short twists and turns, it quickly came out that I knew. It was something that we'd bring up occasionally. I felt like blushing any time I would be brave enough to say "marry". It is so strange to get comfortable with loving someone that much. It means you have to trust them, and though I did trust him from the beginning, it was scary nonetheless. I'm used to people not fulfilling any needs, or maybe one here and there-sometimes well, sometimes poorly, but never enough to feel sure about them. There was always a feeling of settling, of needing more. When his arms and mine are tangled at night, I believe it when he says he's got me.

I have nightmares rarely, but when I do, they are about two things- deployment and him not loving me anymore. These are recurring dreams that vary little and have that residual realness that lingers through the morning. I hate them, but I think it's telling, too. My heart knows what would hurt the deepest. My mind knows the way to scare me the most.

Things won't really change much if at all to say "I do". They've changed since we first brought it up, though. Hearing his voice get a little bit softer when he says things like "wife" or "Mrs.", my heart races every single time. Any time he slips his ring/my old ring onto my ring finger, I feel my face flush. If I never expected to meet him, and I never expected him to fall for me or move here, than I didn't expect him to say those words times one zillion.

The superhero on the carpet? Yeah, that'll be my husband someday.