The Way I Loved You ✓

22. The Proposal

The Proposal is a 2009 American romantic comedy film. The plot centers on a Canadian executive (Sandra Bullock ) who learns that she may face deportation from the U.S. because her visa renewal application was denied. Determined to retain her position as editor-in-chief of a publishing house, she convinces her long-suffering personal assistant (Ryan Reynolds) to temporarily act as her fiancé.[ Source: Wikipedia]

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Fun fact:  Emily likes sitting on the right side of the chemistry station. Nathan always sits on the left.

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Chapter Twenty Two: The Proposal

Here was what I had been planning; after the chemistry class ended, I’d ask Nathan Callahan to go to Prom with me and thank him (I know it'd stroke his ego, insert eye roll here) for all the promposals I had gotten throughout the day. Maybe I would treat him to coffee since he said he knew a good café.

Things were turning out to be very different from my plan. Because as Wong kept calling people forward, and Nathan kept handing them test tubes, I realized something was underway. Everyone was getting called to the front except me.

It was very suspicious. The people in front of me, behind me, sitting in the row beside me; all got their chances while I got skipped.

I glanced at Nathan as another student walked up to the table. Nathan glared at him as he handed him a test tube. The guy poured the solution into a beaker. Wrong called the next person.

After a while, Nathan was arranging the beakers. A few of the solutions were still changing colors.

“Have I forgotten to call anyone?” Wong asked.

If this were any other day, I wouldn't have raised my hand. I didn't want to go to the front of the class and look at Wong any closer than I was obligated to.

But Nathan was there. He was working hard. 

If my theory were true, I wouldn’t know what I'd do.

Wong saw my raised hand and called me.

I was walking up to the front table when his phone rang. Wong walked out of the class as I reached there.

I was looking at Nathan. Nathan was looking at me. He walked around the table and stood beside me, handing me a test tube.

I looked down at the table, and sure enough, the beakers stood in a pattern of words I'd been seeing all day; in crumpled-up paper balls, on a piece of paper on a mint, in a coffee cup. 

I poured the liquid into the beaker he pointed to and set the test tube back in its holder. My hands shook. My heart beat furiously. I stood there and watched the color change.

The solutions were all in pink  and the beakers stood in arrangement of, ‘Prom’.

“There weren't enough beakers for a question mark,” Nathan whispered in my hair. 

I stared at the table. Someone from the front desk figured out what was happening. I heard someone whispering the word promposal. But all my attention was on Nathan's hand, squeezing mine.

I would have never expected this. No one had done anything this nice for me before. 

When I looked at Nathan, he grinned. “Yes?”

I nodded and threw my arms around his shoulders. A girl from the front desk cheered.

Nathan smiled at me as he wrapped his arms around my waist, slightly lifting me off the ground. He turned me around as I faced the class.