Page 18 of It Couldn't Be You
“Emma Grace Brown, will you marry me?” he asked loudly, looking around at his smiling relatives who started clapping and cheering like we were at a football game and he’d just scored a touchdown.
I stood there in my sparkly red dress, holding my breath—holding in all the doubts and questions from the drive here so tight I could burst.
How could I look him in the eyes and say yes? But it also felt as if I couldn’t say anythingbutyes to this party of Jordan’s smiling relatives. My would-be-in-laws expected to be eating my own hash brown casserole for Christmas parties to come. I looked back down at Jordan’s hopeful face, a face I knew like the map of my hometown.
I touched the ring. It was beautiful. It looked like a ring Jordan would choose. Gleaming silver, a princess cut, like something straight out of a jewelry store catalog.
Seconds were ticking by, but I couldn’t find any words that felt right or even a little sufficient. The anticipatory silence turned to awkward murmurs. I felt like I was in a holiday movie, but someone had stolen my lines. I had no answers for the man in front of me, only questions.
I knelt to Jordan’s eye level and whispered, “I am feeling really overwhelmed. Can I have a minute, please?”
His eyes squinted at me in confusion. He cleared his throat before answering me. It was painfully obvious that saying anything but yes in this moment was hurting him.
“Oh, okay?” he muttered.
“Sorry,” I whispered as I backed away. “I’m so sorry.”
I bolted for the family bathroom. I heard a murmur of confusion ripple throughout the room as I shut the bathroom door behind me. I couldn’t catch my breath. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. My chin was quivering. I collapsed to the bathroom floor on my hands and knees. A sob escaped me. I buried my face into a towel hanging on the wall beside me to muffle the sound.
I hadn’t expected this. I should’ve expected this. I couldn’t believe I let it get this far. I thought I had more time to deal with these quiet doubts that had been piling up in the back of my mind, but now they were going to break our hearts.
I felt like a sleepwalker who woke up in the middle of a car crash. One she’d caused.
There, crouched on the fuzzy white bathroom rug, I had to decide what to do next. Should I walk back out there and offer a polite yes in front of his family and then explain no later? But would that hurt worse? To offer forever and then explain it was all a lie to save his pride. Or would it selfishly be to save mine?
There was no escape plan, and I felt completely trapped. I felt my heart breaking within my chest. Jordan had asked me to marry him, and I had to give him an answer.Jordan asked me to marry him.That thought sent more sobs through my chest because I loved Jordan—his beefy shoulders, his bear hugs, his southern accent, his hand around a football. He made me feel wanted. We had a friendship that comforted me. I could have a happy future with Jordan. I loved Jordan. But maybe it wasn’t about if I loved Jordan. Maybe it was just simply aboutwhat I wanted.
I wiped my dripping eyes with shaky hands while I reframed Jordan’s question from “Will you marry me?” to “Do youwantto marry me?” And it was an easy answer—no.
The idea of marrying Jordan apparently gave me a panic attack and sent me into sobs. I could never marry a man who thought proposing to me in front of his family, whom I barely knew at a Christmas party, was the way to ask me to spend the rest of my life with him. Casually in his car, while we were driving to dinner would’ve felt more right than this.
Now here I was, trapped in the middle of a stuffy pink bathroom with reindeer decorated hand towels and gingerbread scented hand soap while a room full of partygoers awaited my answer on the other side of the door. I stared at an ill-placed window across from the toilet and wished I was anywhere but here. I did the only thing that made sense right now and dialed Katie’s number.
“Hi.” Her voice was tentative and tight, and I immediately knew that she’d known his plans.
“You knew,” I whispered angrily.
“Knew what?” she asked awkwardly.
“That he was going to propose at his family’s giant Christmas reunion party thing!” I burst into tears.
“Yes, I knew. Oh my God, you’re crying. What happened?”
I just kept crying, collapsing like a broken dam.
“Did he propose?” she asked quietly with a door closing behind her. “What’s going on, Em?”
I took a deep, steadying breath. “He proposed during the Christmas sing-along.”
“During the Christmas sing-along? Oh, Jordan,” she moaned. “Okay, what did you say?”
“I asked to be excused to the bathroom.”
It was silent.
“And you’re there now, I presume?” she asked gently.
I pathetically nodded my head into the phone. “Yes.”
