Page 30 of For I Have Sinned
We left the US to fly west, stopping next in Japan. Kyoto is the Capital of Peace and Calm with some 1,660 Buddhist temples, 400 Shinto shrines, and 60 Christian churches. The city itself was beautiful and calm, but visiting the temples and shrines was something that I wish I’d planned more time for.
As we were leaving, Ellsworth decided if he was going to believe anything, it would be to follow the Buddhist path. “It’s not believing in a powerful divinity so much as following a way of life,” he told me as we boarded the plane to Cambodia. “I could probably do that. But that’s not really what he was asking of me, is it?”
I took his hand, not answering one way or another. If he were alive, I think his husband would tell him it was fine. But I didn’t know the man, so I didn’t feel comfortable saying as much and it wasn’t really my place.
The hike to Angkor Wat was exhausting, but being there and seeing the enormous temple was entirely worth it. I could feel the deep peace and spirituality of the place. For a while, as Ellsworth and I walked around in silence and he took it all in, I thought maybe he found what he was looking for.
We spent well into the evening there before traveling back. As much as I wanted to ask, I didn’t. I studied the small smile on his lips and the lightness in the way he walked. But he never spoke of the visit as more than it was one of his favorite places he’s ever visited in his life to date.
From Cambodia, we spent a week exploring Stonehenge and Armagh, Ireland where the Celtic pagans had a strong root. Even though Christianity took it over some many hundred years ago, there’s Celtic pagan influence and reminders everywhere.
And now we are climbing to our very last stop on this tour. One I am incredibly nervous about because I haven’t just planned it as our last spiritual stop, but as a little something more. We’re walking with a group and within the group is a Peruvian civil servant.
But first, we need to finish scaling the mountain. It is fucking excruciating. But when we reach the top and set our eyes on Machu Picchu, my heart stops, and I just take in the enormity of it.
“This place unties and resonates all the chakras,” Ellsworth reports from the book I handed him on the flight here. I’d given him one like it for every stop we’d made, telling him all about the place we were going. “The main cores of spiritual power in the human body.” He pauses as he looks at the pages for a second before looking at me with amusement. “That’s my problem, isn’t it? My chakras are blocked so I don’t have the capacity to believe in any of this.”
I chuckle and pull him to my chest. “If that’s what you believe, okay.”
“What do you think? You’ve taken me to some epic places, Zay, and I’m still…” He shakes his head. “It’s not a waste of time, is it?”
“Any time with you is not a waste of time,” I tell him, kissing him lightly. “Seeing how you smile and find peace everywhere we go is not a waste. Watching you smile and laugh and appreciate everything we see and do is definitely not a waste.”
His smile is lopsided as I speak. “You’re a little sappy today.”
I kiss him again. “I love to see you happy. I love to be the one that gives you that happiness. So I’m totally embracing the sappy label today.”
Ellsworth chuckles. I follow him around, gently steering him where I want him to go as we slowly make our way to the Sun Temple. There’s a single person waiting there and then a few off to the sides.
When we get to the House of the Inca just before it, I pull Ellsworth around to look at me. “Are you happy?”
He grins and nods. “Very.”
My palms are a little sweaty and I rub them on my thighs before pulling him close by his hips. He doesn’t miss me wipe my hands and looks at me with a brow raised.
“A while ago, we talked about building a future together,” I say and Ellsworth immediately smiles. “We listed some milestones, and though you said you wanted them all, I suggested we start with one at a time.”
His smile is wide, and he licks his lips. I know what he’s expecting at this point. But I don’t think the follow up to it will be something he saw coming. Even seeing his smile and being fairly confident he would say yes, I am nearly jittery with nerves.
“I know we’ve been looking at houses, but I’d really like to get married first. I want to spend my life with you. The moment I laid eyes on you, even if I didn’t understand that’s what everything in me was saying, I knew it. And though we don’t make a habit of talking about the future, maybe we should more than we do, I think we’re on the same page.”
Ellsworth lays a kiss on my lips. “We are. But hurry up and ask before I do.”
Laughing, I lean my forehead against his. “Will you marry me, Ellsworth Sanna? Be my husband and grow old with me?”
He’s nodding before the first four words leave my mouth. When I stop, he says breathily, “Yes. Always yes.”
“Well… then that only leaves me with one more question.” Now he’s confused. His brows knit together and he pulls his forehead from mine. “Will you marry me right now?”
His eyes go wide. “Now? Here?”
I laugh a little. “Yeah. Right here.” I shift and gesture to where the civil servant awaits us at the Sun Temple. He gives us a little wave and Ellsworth stares with his jaw slack. “I might have had an ulterior motive for coming here,” I hedge.
For a very long moment during which my heart is ready to beat its way out of my chest, he says nothing. He stares at the man in the temple before looking at me. And then he grins and wraps his arms around my neck.
The relief that rushes out of me makes my knees shake. Fuck, I didn’t realize I was ready to pass the fuck out.
“I love you, Zaiden,” he whispers. “You have no idea how much.”
