Chapter 283: A ring on my finger….
He grinned up at me, that same devastating grin that had undone me the very first time he ever aimed it in my direction, all those years ago.
A small velvet box sat open in his palm, a ring catching the overhead light in a way that made my knees genuinely threaten to give out.
“Indigo Bianchi,” he began, his voice steady despite the emotion visibly building behind his eyes, “I have loved you since before I understood what loving someone even meant. You were the first thing that ever made sense to me in a world built entirely on chaos, and somehow, even after everything that’s tried to tear us apart — my father, the years we lost, the blood, the running, the almost-dying more times than either of us should have survived — you’re still here. Still choosing me.”
My eyes were already blurring, tears spilling before I could stop them.
“I don’t have a perfect life to offer you,” he continued, his voice thickening. “I never will. But I can promise you this, I will spend every single day making sure you never have to fight alone again. I will hold you when the nightmares come, I will sit outside every door you need to lock for a while, and I will love you and Lila with everything I have left in me for as long as I’m breathing, and probably a good while after that too, if the universe lets me get away with it.” He swallowed hard, his own eyes glassy now, and somewhere behind me I heard someone sniffling — Rita, or Tamara, or both, I honestly couldn’t tell, and I was too terrified to turn and look, certain that breaking my gaze from him even for a second might shatter whatever this moment was.
“You are the great love of my life, little fairy,” he said, quieter now, just for me. “Will you marry me?”
I opened my mouth, fully intending to answer, but before a single word could make it out, Lila’s voice cut cheerfully through the silence.
“Finally!” she announced loudly, hands on her hips like she’d been personally inconvenienced by how long this had taken. “I was gonna start charging you guys rent for how long I’ve had to wait for this!”
The entire group burst into laughter, the tension shattering instantly, and even through my tears I found myself laughing too, shaking my head at my own daughter’s audacity. Fabian huffed out a laugh from his knee, glancing at her with mock offense. “Rent, huh?”
“Yep.” Lila crossed her arms, entirely unbothered. “Grandma daycare isn’t free, Coco.”
That set everyone off again, and I used the extra seconds it bought me to compose myself, wiping at my cheeks and finally, finally nodding, my hand already stretching out toward his.
“Yes,” I managed, my voice breaking apart around the word. “Yes, Fabian. A thousand times, yes.”
He slid the ring onto my finger with hands that weren’t entirely steady either, and the second it settled into place I pulled him up and into me, kissing him with everything I had, everything I’d survived to get to this exact moment.
“Eww!” Lila’s voice rang out from somewhere beside us, and we broke apart laughing against each other’s mouths, foreheads pressed together, both of us breathless.
I stared at him for a long moment after that, and he stared right back, something in his eyes so full it nearly knocked the air out of me all over again. I felt like I was flying. Weightless, untethered from every dark thing that had ever tried to hold me down. He looked exactly as happy as I felt, maybe more.
“Alright, alright,” Isaiah called out, clapping his hands together, “can we please go home now? Some of us didn’t sleep on the flight over and I would like a bed sometime this century.”
Another round of laughter broke us fully apart, though not before Fabian caught my eye one last time, giving me a look that promised entire empty closets and thoroughly ruined bedsheets the second we had a moment alone, a promise made all the more potent by the fact that he’d spent the last two weeks tiptoeing carefully around me, patient in a way I knew must have cost him.
Two weeks ago, I hadn’t been able to feel anything at all. I’d been hollowed out, numb, drowning in guilt so heavy I couldn’t find my own name inside it.
Two weeks ago, I hadn’t believed I’d ever laugh the way I was laughing right now, surrounded by people who loved me, with a ring on my finger and my daughter’s hand back in mine.
If no one else was going to applaud how far I’d come, I decided right then, standing in the middle of that airport with tears still drying on my cheeks, I was going to applaud myself.
Fabian took my hand, ring and all, and laced our fingers together like he had no intention of ever letting go again. Lila skipped ahead of us toward the exit, already chattering to Rita about something entirely unrelated, and the rest of our strange, hard-won family trailed behind, loud and laughing and utterly ours.
I looked around at all of it — this messy, mismatched, deeply loved family I’d somehow ended up with — and I let myself believe, for the first time in longer than I could remember, that we were finally, truly safe. Whatever came next, we would face it the way we’d faced everything else.
Together.