She accepted.
Life became a blur of meetings and missed dinners.
Theo once asked, “Is Marina coming tonight?”
Ryan didn’t always know the answer.
The night she missed Theo’s school play, something shifted.
“I need to know,” Ryan said carefully later, “if we fit into your life long-term.”
She didn’t cry because he was cruel.
She cried because he wasn’t.
“I’ve been waiting for you to leave,” she admitted. “Since day one.”
He crouched in front of her chair.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The Unexpected Turn
Four months later, scaffolding collapsed at one of Ryan’s renovation sites.
Marina reached the hospital trembling.
“He kept asking for you,” the nurse said.
Ryan lay pale against white sheets, his right leg stabilized in braces.
“There’s significant damage,” the surgeon explained. “Full recovery is uncertain.”
Marina stared at the metal supports.
For years, she feared being the burden.
Now he might face limitations of his own.
When he woke, groggy, his first question was, “Theo okay?”
“Yes.”
“And my leg?”
She squeezed his hand. “It may never be the same.”
Silence.
Then he exhaled slowly. “Guess we’ll accessorize together.”
She laughed through tears.
What He Did Next
Rehabilitation was brutal.
Frustration shadowed him daily.
One Saturday, after weeks of therapy, Ryan stood using a cane for the first time.
He stared at it, jaw tight.
“I hate this,” he muttered.
Marina rolled closer. “I hated mine too.”
He looked at her differently then — not with sympathy, but with shared understanding.
That afternoon, in front of Theo, Ryan did something she never expected.
He set the cane aside.
Walked carefully behind her chair.
And pushed her down the driveway.
Then he stepped in front of her.
Lowered himself slowly to one knee.
Pulled out a small ring box.
“Sorry,” he said gently. “I walk with a cane now.”
Tears blurred her vision.
“But if you’ve got wheels,” he continued, voice unsteady, “and I’ve got this… I think together we balance out.”
Theo gasped loudly.
Ryan opened the box.
“I don’t want perfect,” he said. “I want real. I want the complicated mornings and therapy appointments and spilled paint and school concerts. I want all of it. With you.”
He looked at her the way he had the first night — steady, certain.
“Marry me, Marina.”
She didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
And for the first time in years, she didn’t apologize for the tears streaming down her face.