Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 81(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 101(@200wpm)___ 81(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
“Good morning,” Dean says, his voice hushed in the dim kitchen. “I meant to be back in bed before you woke up, but I got carried away.”
“With what?” I glance at the sash he’s still holding in his hand. “We didn’t . . . I didn’t accidentally tear off a badge or something, did I? Because, I mean, that would be so classic after you finally let me see them and—”
“No, babe. You didn’t tear anything.” He stoops down, putting us at eye level. “And even if you did, that would only make them more special, okay? Everything you put your mark on is special. Perfect.” Straightening once again, he clears his throat, shifting from one foot to the other. “That’s why I made you your own set of badges.”
I stop breathing. “You what?”
“Yeah, I, uh . . .” He lays a sash down across my lap, and all I can do is stare at the colorful rows of patches. They’re not professional, by any means. The stitching is a little crude, and the edges aren’t sealed. They’re the most beautiful objects I’ve ever seen in my twenty-one years. When all I do is look at them, stunned, my eyes pooling with tears, Dean clears his throat again. “This one is for compassion, since you’re the best counselor for curing homesickness. Grief counseling. For knowing how to bring me back to life, even if I didn’t understand your methods at the time.” He has to pause for a few seconds after that one, for which I’m grateful, because I’m so overwhelmed. “This one is for ingenuity—for inventing the Lucky Charms competition that I’m pretty sure will become a tradition.” He brushes a finger over a patch with overlapping comedy and tragedy masks. “Drama, naturally. That’s the first one I made. But it’s about more than you loving theater, it’s also how you communicate. In big, meaningful ways. I know that now. And because of that, here, we have a Great Basin spadefoot. Or my attempt at sewing one, anyway. This is a serious nature badge, babe, because those suckers are hard to find. You did that for me and—”
I burst into tears.
Big, dopey sobs that shake my whole body. “Oh, my goodness,” I wail, scooping up the sash and holding it to my chest. “Dean.”
His gulp is audible. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
I cry harder.
His arms wrap around me securely as he crowds in between my thighs, his mouth planting kisses on my hairline. “We didn’t even get through all of them.”
“No! I can’t take anymore!”
“One more?”
“Fine.” I wipe my eyes on the warm, bare skin of his shoulders, then pull away, taking a deep breath, which he takes with me, as if we’re in a Lamaze class. “I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you did something so perfect. No, I can. But you know what I mean. I want to be buried with them.”
His laugh is relieved, and maybe a little chagrined. “Don’t die yet. I need to ask you one more thing.”
I eek a noise. That’s all I can do and still hold myself together and listen.
He holds up a badge, pinched between his thumb and index finger.
It’s a red stitched heart with our names in the middle.
Oh no. What is this one? Surely, I won’t survive.
“Will you be my girlfriend, Margot?”
“Yes!” I shout in bliss/distress, collapsing back onto the table, my arms thrown overhead like goalposts. “I’ll be your girlfriend. Of course I’ll be your girlfriend.”
His face appears over me, a little blurry through my tears. “I see you now, okay? I won’t ever stop,” he says, his smile lopsided, as if he’s holding back his own emotions. “What do you think? Should we iron the heart patch on?”
“Yes,” I say as evenly as possible, my soul having left my body. “Yes, please.”
A muscle works in his throat. “I love you, you know.”