You're my partner. You've been my partner for four years since it was just the two of us pouring cereal. So, this is your decision as much as mine. If you say no, I put the ring away and it's just us.
And that's a good life, too. That's a great life, and I will never once make you feel bad about it. So, tell me the truth. Do you want V to stay forever?
Emma was quiet for a long moment. She reached over and picked up Mr. Buttons from the pillow and she held him and Ryan waited his heart in his throat. "When mom died?" Emma said slowly, "I thought our family got broke like a plate." "And you can glue a plate, but everybody can still see the crack." She looked up at him.
But V didn't glue us. She It's like we were a family with an empty chair, and she didn't try to sit in mom's chair. She brought her own chair. Emma frowned, working it out, 8 years old, and reaching for something enormous.
She brought her own chair and she put it at the table. And now there's more chairs than there used to be, not less. That's better. More chairs is better than an empty one, Ryan couldn't speak for a second.
More chairs is better than an empty one, he repeated when he could. Emma, that might be the smartest thing anybody's ever said. So yes, Emma said, "Ask her." But she held up a finger, her mother's finger, that stubborn sevengo going on 40 gesture. I want to help.
I want to be there. And Mr. Buttons wants to be there. And I get to be the one who tells her about the chairs.
You get to be the one who tells her about the chairs. Ryan agreed. And he pulled his daughter into a hug so she wouldn't see his face. And Emma let him and patted his back the way he'd patted hers a thousand times and said, "It's okay, Daddy.
It's a happy one. This is a happy cry. Yeah, Ryan said into her hair. Yeah, Bug.
This is a happy one. He did it where it started. He thought about it for 11 days. All the fancy places he could take her.
All the ways a man was supposed to do this. The restaurant, the view, the violinist, all the things Victoria's money could have bought, and that would have meant nothing because they weren't theirs. And in the end, he knew there was only one right place, the same way he'd known there was only one right diner a year before. He brought her back to the building, to Sterling Holdings, to the 14th floor, to the hallway.
He told her he'd forgotten something at the office on a Saturday, and she came with him because they did everything together now. And Emma came too, holding Mr. Buttons, vibrating with the effort of keeping the secret. and Ryan led them down the empty Saturday hallway past the break room where a broken woman had once been offered a worse cup of coffee and he stopped at the spot, the exact spot he'd walked it out. He knew where it was, where a year and some months ago he'd made a foolish joke to a woman he was afraid of.
Ryan, Victoria said. What are we? Do you know where we're standing? Ryan asked.
Victoria looked around and Ryan watched her realize it. Watched the recognition move across her face. Watched her understand which hallway this was, which floor, which spot. This is where, she started.
This is where I made the worst joke of my life. Ryan said, "You remember it? A stressful company event and you were sitting alone and everybody in the building thought you were a dragon and I was too tired to know better." And I said, his voice caught and he pushed through it. I said, "Maybe you should just marry me.
Then nobody would dare pressure you again." "You remember? I remember every word," Victoria said. She'd gone very still. "I remember I stood up and I almost I don't know what I almost did.
I couldn't speak. I just you were the first person in seven years who'd offered me something without wanting anything back and it broke something open in me and I didn't have the words so I just you took my hand Ryan said and you didn't say anything and that scared the hell out of me because I didn't understand yet that a person can say the biggest thing there is without any words at all. He reached into his pocket. So, here's what I finally understand.
More than a year later, standing in the exact same spot. That day, I asked you to marry me, and I was joking. I was hiding behind a joke the way I hide behind everything because I was too scared to want anything real. He got down on one knee there on the industrial carpet of the 14th floor hallway, and Emma made a small sound and clapped both hands over her mouth, and Victoria's eyes flooded.
But this time, V. Ryan held up the small, honest, hard one ring. This time, I mean every single word. No joke.
No hiding. Marry me. Marry us. Not because you're lonely.
Not because I'm lonely, not because either of us need saving anymore. Because we don't. We did the saving. We did it together in a boardroom, in a diner, and in front of a stone in a cemetery.
His voice broke all the way open now and he let it. Marry me because you brought your own chair to the table. Emma says, he laughed wet. Emma says more chairs is better than an empty one and she's the smartest person I know and she wants to be the one to tell you about the chairs.