A Crash Made in Heaven

Chapter 1: Proposals and Jail Time

"Arden Johnson, you are the most beautiful, real, loving, and kind person that I was ever blessed to meet. You light up my world like no other and I can't think of anyone else I would rather spend the rest of my life with. I may not be perfect and I may not always make you happy, but that doesn't mean I won't try my best. I will give this relationship and I will give you my all, my everything if you will have me," Michael proclaimed his love for me as he knelt down with a ring in his hand.

We've been dating for almost four years now since we met during our junior year of college. I knew Michael began dating me with an end goal in mind, but honestly, I didn't think much about the future at the time. But the future suddenly became the present and I replied, "Of course." Why wouldn't I marry Michael? He was reliable, he had a stable job, he made me happy enough, and he was safe. I mean, I dated him for four years. I can't come out of this relationship without a ring, not after all the time and effort put into making this relationship work for as long as it has. How much harder could it be to make this work for a lifetime?

The thing is, it's not that I don't love Michael. Of course I love him, but it just isn't that fiery and passionate love they always talk about in the books and movies. He's a good guy with an absolutely loving heart who only has eyes for one girl: me, besides his mom. There was no reason for me to say no.

I gave a small smile as I thought about Michael's proposal to me almost a year ago and let out a little yelp of surprise when I felt two hands snake around my waist.

"Hey honey, what's for dinner?"

"I was thinking some sort of cream pasta, maybe alfredo? Is that okay with you?"

"Of course, anything you make is delicious."

I didn't respond after that. My conversations with Michael are always like the food he makes: a little bland like it needs a few more spices. We don't really talk much unless it's about work, family, sex, or the wedding. In fact, we haven't even started planning the wedding yet because I said that I didn't want to rush into planning and Michael still hasn't grown a pair large enough to confront me about it. Again, it's not that I don't want to marry Michael. I do, I really do, but something about getting married this quickly to him sets me on edge. It makes me second guess my choices so I just keep pushing it off saying that I'm not ready yet, but deep down, I'm not sure if I ever will be but I'm not ready to tackle that fact either. So for now, we push and push until we can't push the wedding any later.

We ate dinner in silence minus the meaningless small talk we made here and there. We always made sure to put on some sort of TV show or movie so that it wouldn't be completely silent. I could tell that both of us were a little bit extra uncomfortable today, but we both just looked toward the TV as a way to ignore confrontation until I heard a cough. I looked over to where the sound came from and found Michael staring intently at me.

"I need to talk to you about something." This can't be good.

"Okay, what is it?"

"Our relationship. Arden, we've been engaged for almost a year now and we haven't even planned a single part of our wedding. I know that you didn't want to rush into wedding planning all that quickly because of your residency, but don't you think a year is enough? There is something wrong here and I want you to tell me what it is. Do you not want to marry me anymore? Is that it? God, Arden we can barely sit in the same room and eat dinner together without feeling awkward. We've known each other for five years and we've been dating for four out of those five, but why is it that we suddenly can't hold even a semi-meaningful conversation? I mean, we haven't had sex for almost three months for God's sake!" Holy, that was a lot. I need time to process and come up with a good way to respond but he is looking at me with such fire in his eyes. This is the first real strong emotion I've felt from Michael in a long time but it doesn't excite me as it normally would. In fact, I'm almost a little tired of waiting for it.