“Would you still be with me if you knew that our relationship would end in tragedy?” I asked.

Instead of answering directly, he answered like Dr. Manhattan from the episode where I got that idea from. “Why yes, of course,” he answered in an emotionless voice.

I wrinkled my nose, but tears slid down my cheeks. “Would you?” I repeated.

“Don’t all relationships end in tragedy?” he said, mimicking Dr. Manhattan.

I sighed, but I already knew the answer.

Just two hours previously, I was vacuuming the bedside table, sweeping all the dust, in an attempt to prepare my sleeping space to better my accommodate my recovery from a cold. Despite the roar, I heard the door open and close.

It could only be.

Of course, I had been shaped by videos, stories, books, photos, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. I wanted the flashdance, the surprise, the friends. I always joked about the “Purpose…Proposal” from Avenue Q for years. Until the few moments that I thought that it was going to happen. As we drove from dinner for my birthday, I fell asleep in the car. When I woke up, I discovered that we were at treasure island next to the setting sun. I sat up, alert. Was this it? He began, “I know that I don’t know how to express my emotions…”

I was relieved that it wasn’t. I was relieved that nobody was watching. I was relieved that it wasn’t a spectacle. I was relieved that I wasn’t put on display.

But the more that it didn’t happen, the more that I constructed a thought for myself. Soon over the years as we navigated challenges and successes, I started to say exactly what I wanted. So much that I (almost) literally wrote it on our annual goals post-it.

And today, technically yesterday, for weeks, I had decided exactly how and where I wanted. It didn’t quite end up that way due to the noise in the restaurant and our timing.

So instead on the following day after meandering through the Moma and he left to run an errand (pick up Philz) and I was vacuuming, it happened.

After vacuuming, I came out to the living room and he acted surprise.

“Is it—” I said.

“I think that I had it in Toad bag,” he said and pulled out the original one.

“Not a fresh one?”

Then he pulled out another one. And gave me a deep hug. I started making excited screams and he handed it over to me. I wrinkled my nose and said no, waving my hands.

“It has to go on!” I said and clarified. “Out of the wrapper.”

I also waved him to kneel down.

And then it happened.