Did You Miss Me?

Walking down the beach is how I dreamed of being proposed to. It would be sunset, and the sea would be gently crashing on the white sand with no sound in the whole world apart from the gentle tide. Of course every girl has their dream of how they want to be proposed to but it remains just that, a dream; a dream that she only ever shares with a best friend and her secret diary.

The way you're actually proposed to has absolutely nothing on your dream, and you always feel like you'll be disappointed when you get proposed to in a restaurant and the ring is in the cake or something cheesy like that, but it's not. In a moment when it's just you, the one you love and a single circular piece of jewellery with a pretty stone on it, you tend to forget about the proposal you always dreamed of.

I sat cross legged on Jake's bed. My old diary lay open on my legs, my scruffy teenage handwriting scribbled across the pages in an array of different colours. I tucked a stray strand of brunette hair behind my ear before turning the page, hoping that I'd carried on the story of when my very good, but not best friend Lacy told me about her boyfriend and how he'd said "I love you" for the first time. I giggled as I replayed the memory in my mind.

"Do you remember the first time I said I love you?" I felt Jake's arms wrap around my stomach and his chin resting on my shoulder. He'd been there for a while, but only now did he decide that he wanted to hug me. I nodded slightly and turned the page again, finding the entry the day after the Lacy one. I read the first line and shut the book immediately. No way was I going to ruin the mood with Jake with a story like that. I pushed back and ended up lying on his stomach. I turned around to face him. There was just confusion in his eyes, nothing that accused me of anything so I inwardly sighed a breath of relief.

"The first time you told me you loved me. We had just had sex for the first time." I breathed a laugh, getting no response whatsoever.

"You always put such a romantic twist on things" he chuckled as he cupped my face with his hand. "I think you'll find, it was about six months into our relationship and we had never had sex before because you were keen to wait the right amount of time, so I waited... Not that I wanted to, but you insisted so I was okay with it"

"Yeah, you were being okay with me wanting to wait? You can't lie in a story I'm part of Jake" I giggled and he scrunched his face up, as if embarrassed I'd caught him out. I heard him whisper a 'damn it' but I said nothing. I urged for him to continue.

"When you finally said you were ready, I wanted to make it special for you so I lit candles, and cooked dinner"

"Yeah, the dinner got burned and the candles were smelling quite unhealthy... I went to buy some sexy underwear, and I couldn't get it on"

"You got stuck... It was the funniest and more importantly the cutest thing I'd ever seen"

We both laughed, this time I screwed my face up, it was an embarrassing story. We'd both set up so much for this time, both put so much effort into making it special and everything went completely awful. But it was nice, it was memorable and for us, that was the most important thing.

A few minutes passed. We still lay on the bed, my head resting on Jake's stomach as his thumb ran itself over my forehead, slowly sending me into a sleep which I didn't want to go into.

"Why did you close the diary so quickly, Jess?" his tired, husky voice reverberated through his stomach, vibrating my head, waking me up ever so slightly to make a tired, yet still defensive reply.

"Just something private which I rather you not see just yet" I felt a chuckle echo through his abdomen, I wasn't sure why he was laughing, I was too sleepy to even begin to question his intentions. At least I told him the truth; I wasn't ready for him to find out about Sam.