Page 106 of The Curveball
I laugh through new tears and read the comic strips. The first begins when we met. The artist who did this made sure my caricature had pouty lips with a little thought bubble that reads ‘I don’t like this guy, but he’s seeeeexxxy.’
I laugh when it ends with an arrow pointing down the trail. Maybe fifty paces down is another comic page. The accident and hospital. Next, I find the day I moved into Griffin’s house, with more bubbles of me thinking salacious thoughts about my man.
I snicker when I get to the moment where I tell my dad Griffin is my boyfriend with Marti listening in the background. Marti’s character is big and boisterous with cookies flying around her head. I’m drawn as a superhero in full cape with the words “Griffin’s Girl” over the chest.
As I walk through the story of us, I pick up the pages. I pause at the banquet night. It shows Griffin with his heart on the pavement, and I want to cry for other reasons. The next page is the make-out in the kitchen.
I follow the arrow, anxious for the rest, but when I get to the pedestal it’s empty. In a comic’s place is Griffin.
He’s dressed in nice jeans, but it’s his T-shirt that stops me. Like the superhero comic it says, “Birdie’s Bae: The Final Chapter”
“Griff.” My voice is breathless. I hug the comics against my heart. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on? Let me tell you.” I hold my breath as he steps next to me, but slowly, he lowers to one knee.
“Griffin.” I cover my mouth.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a diamond, then looks at me with his big, white grin. “I’ve asked you a lot of different ways that were less than satisfactory.”
“They were.”
He chuckles. “I’m hoping today will make up for those subtle hints that you, Wren Fox, are the one I want to spend the rest of my life with. I want to write a new chapter, one where you’re head over heels in love with me, and I’m lost without you. I hope you’ll say yes and marry me, so we can start writing.”
I’m nodding incessantly; my voice is caught in the back of my throat, but I manage to croak out a rough, “Yes.”
It’s all Griffin needs before he scoops me up and spins me around, the comics smashed between us. He kisses me and kisses me, laughing in between breaths.
From various places in the park my family and Griffin’s surround us, screaming. His teammates clap him on the back. Even Mason Walker and his friend, Lukas, poke out from under a shrub with the footage of the whole thing.
I guess Griffin hired them to film it and edit it for us to keep.
“Yes,” I say a little stronger. “Yes, Griffin. I will marry you. This proposal was completely adequate.”
He puts me back on the ground and grins. “I live to please you, Birdie.” He lowers his lips to my ear. “I always will.”
I was wrong. Love doesn’t merely exist in the pages of books. It lives in honey-pot eyes and a love of life. It lives in gentle hands and sweet kisses.
It lives in Griffin Marks, and now he’s mine. Always.
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