There was the beginning of a silence settling over the room, as Nat drifted deeper into her train of thought.
She broke the silence, with a sudden, confident sentence, only a few words long, that would change the nature of their relationship forever.
"Let's do it now."
Wanda was surprised at Nat's decisiveness, and was about to speak when Nat started to talk again.
"I almost lost you once, and being apart from you those eight months was the worst experience of my life, and love, that's saying something. I know I'm reckless and I'm always going to do things to disappoint you, but the thing is, Wanda, I'm almost never sure about anything. Everything in my life has been so screwed up that sometimes, I don't even know what's real anymore. But the one thing I do know, with absolute certainty, is that I love you. And I want to be your wife, if you'll have me. I know that I need you in my life, and if it would make you happier if I wasn't in it, then I would erase myself from all records, because the one thing I want more than you, is your happiness. I want that beautiful smile on your face as much as possible, lighting up that gorgeous face of yours, and, God, if I can help it I want to be the one to put it there. So, let's do it now. I can't promise you I'll be safe every time I go out, I've never been able to, but, God, Wanda, if there's one thing that can stop me, it's a promise of going home and coming back to you. You and your beautiful eyes, and smile, and laugh."
She paused, and then added, in a different tone, meeker and quieter, "I never much believed in marriage, I never thought I'd be able to see a human being as all good again after everything that happened, I never thought I'd love, and I never thought I'd find someone to love me. I saw a more than a few marriages fail, and go sour, during my years of hiding and observing, and I'd always written the concept off as stupid and ludicrous, but now, with you, I can see what it is, what it could be, and I've never wanted something more. And, truthfully, there's still a part of me scared that this might fail, but it's a risk I want to take for you, it's a cliff I'll jump, because I want to spend the rest of my life, however long that may be, waking up in your arms."
Wanda felt a warmth rise in her, she knew that Nat had meant every word, and she'd never, never, heard her speak like that. So full of rawness and vulnerability. There was only one thing she could say, the little word that had been sitting at the tip of her tongue the entire time begging to break the boundary of thought into word.
"Yes."
