Dear Diary,

This is it. Ash and I are really over. No, he hasn’t broken up with me yet, it’s only nine forty-five. But I’m about to go to the park so that he can.

I just don’t get it. I hate how he thinks he can just make me fall in love with him and then dump me for his ex. But even though I completely despise him right now, I also still love him. I just can’t help it! It’s like he’s got some kind of hold on me. Like no matter how badly I want to, I just can’t fall out of love with him. It’s like he put me under some kind of spell. And I can’t free myself of it. I can’t control how I feel about him.

Shouldn’t I be able to just hate him without any other side effects? I wasn’t even sure why I still loved him. He broke my heart and he’s about to break it even more in ten minutes. Ooh, speaking of that, I’d better get going.

I want to be on time to the break-up. As if.


“Hi,” Ash greeted me as I approached.

“Hi,” I replied, already feeling tears in the corners of my eyes. It was just so strange talking to him. He didn’t even sound like himself. It was like talking to a stranger. He sounded so grim, so distant, so un-Ash.

He opened his mouth to begin speaking, but then sighed and clamped it shut, looking down at his beat up Converse.

“Just go ahead and say it.” I said, my voice shaky. “I already know that you’re going to break-up with me.”

He looked back up at me, his brow knit together. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“Isn’t that why you wanted me to meet you here?” I asked, confused.

“Um, no.”

“Well then why did you want me to meet you?”

He took a deep breath, and then tentatively began. “Today, Katrina visited me again. She was begging me to get back together with her.” He glanced at me and then continued, “But I told her no.”

“Why?” I inquired.

“Because she’s not you.” he murmured.

I had to have heard him wrong. There was no way he actually just said that. I had to be dreaming. But I wasn’t. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I blurted out.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well first you propose to me without mentioning that you’re going to go fight in the army two days after we marry. Then you’re ex-girlfriend shows up and I find out that you’re little carving wasn’t just for me. Then you punch Cole in the face. Then I find out that the entire time, you’ve been going behind my back and meeting with the freakin’ priest about our wedding, when I already called it off! And now you’re acting like you love me again?”

“What do you mean ‘again‘? I’ve always loved you Evalynne. Throughout everything we’ve been through, there has never been a moment in which I no longer loved you.” he cried. “I’d do anything for you! And the only reason I told you to meet me here is because I wanted to beg you for forgiveness.”

“But…you’re mom has Alzheimer’s because of me. How can you beg me for forgiveness? I should be the one begging you to forgive me!”

“Well if I’d just told you that I was in the army in the first place, you never would have gotten so angry, you never would have stepped in front of that car, and the accident would have never happened.” he said. “So actually, it’s my fault.”

I shook my head, a tear rolling down my cheek. “Don’t blame yourself, Ash. We both know very well that it’s my fault. And I’m so sorry. I would do anything to make it up to you.” I bowed my head in shame, feeling guilty.

“Anything?” he asked, and when I looked up at him an impish grin was spread across his face.

“It depends…what do you have in mind?”

He put his index finger to his chin as if he was really thinking this over. But then that smile came back and he reached into his pocket, pulling out a small velvet box, getting down on one knee, opening the box, revealing a shiny silver ring.

“Marry me,” he said.

I felt my jaw drop and my eyes widen. “You’re proposing to me?” Ok, now I had to be dreaming. “Again?” I added.

“I love you and I want to spend the rest of eternity with you. I never want you to leave me and by marrying you, I can dedicate myself to you. This way, all you have to do is look at the ring on your finger, and then you’ll think of me. Then you’ll remember how much I love you. I can’t even describe how I feel in words. Words aren’t enough.” He looked at me, his eyes glistening in the moonlight.

I didn’t know what to say, my mouth felt all dry and cottony. I was truly speechless. “I…I don’t know what to say…” I choked out.

“All you have to do is say yes.” he replied, as if it were really that simple. But it wasn’t, I knew it, he knew it. Yeah, it would be great if it was, but love is never simple. Love can tear you apart and leave you’re heart broken and raw. But it can also fill you with an indescribable joy, the closest thing we have to magic.

Although, sometimes magic is just an illusion.

But if the love between Ash and I was just an illusion, a trick of the mind, then why did it feel so real? Why was it that when I looked at Ash, I could picture us ten years from now? Happy, married, two little kids, a big house with red shutters and a tire swing hanging from the tree in the front yard. Yeah, it was a bit cookie-cutter couple, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine that with Cole.

I would lie in bed, trying to picture it until my head began to ache. But every single time, I saw Ash. So when I said “Yes,”, I knew I’d made the right decision.