The Soldier's Roommate

Chapter 34: I need a favour.

Alice

I trust Elijah.

That's what I keep repeating in my head over and over and over again as he drives us back to the house. And I know he's right. We shouldn't let someone else dictate how we live our lives, how we feel about each other.

Because the truth is, I love Elijah, with all that I have. And I trust him with all that I have, too.

I guess that's why I don't hesitate when he asks me to close my eyes as we make it to our driveway. He just takes my hand, and I hear how he opens the wooden gate to our garden, the soft grass beneath my booth giving in as we step walk around what I assume is the corner of our house where we still wanted to plant some new flowers. Maybe that's what he did with Mona.

"Okay, I'll let go of you now, but keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them, okay?"

I nod my head, his hand leaving my own before I hear something that sounds like plastic crinkling for a few minutes before his hand suddenly finds my own again.

"Alright, open..."

It takes a second until I'm able to focus on what's right in front of me, and at first I don't know what to look at. Elijah kneels in front of me, behind him a patch of white, and red roses arranged in meticulous lines, spelling out the words that instantly send tears to my eyes.

Will you marry me?

"You know," Elijah speaks before I can even try to wrap my head around this situation, "This is kind of not how I wanted this to happen, but I guess we are pretty bad at doing things the conventional way anyway, so here we go..."

I don't even know how to react, I just feel the tears stream down my face while I shake my head, absolutely not grasping this situation.

"Alice, you know I'm not good with words. Mostly because every time I look at you I'm just goddamn speechless. I mean... Fuck, you're doing it again." He chuckles, but I can only shake my head again, covering my face with my hands, trying to calm myself somehow.

"No, please, look at me..." The way he begs makes me listen to him, and I take a few deep breaths before I remove the hands from my face, seeing his trusting grey eyes focused right on me, showing me once again that I'm the center of his attention. "Fuck, you're beautiful..."

I can't help but laugh at his inability to stay focused on anything but my face, and even if my laugh sounds more like a sob, I still feel my heart warm at the smile that crosses his face. He's such a stunning man. "Damn, this is a disaster," he chuckles, "Okay. Focus." Elijah shakes his head with a laugh before he continues.

"Alice... I don't think there's any word in the English language that could explain just how much I love you. You challenge me, you calm me, you make me feel at home. Because that's what you gave me. A home. You made me find myself again. You gave me back my life by entering it yourself. I know who I am now, and I have you to thank for that. And I know that I don't even deserve you, the encounter with my father earlier proves just that... But I'm selfish, Alice. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to call you my wife, want you to carry my last name, and I absolutely want to wake up next to you every damn day, because fuck... The one time I didn't, almost killed me."

We just look at each other for a moment, and even though my vision is blurry from all the tears that roll down my cheeks, I just see how much he means those words, how much love those grey orbits hold in them.

God, here I am, freaking out because Mona was here, when all she did was help him prepare this...

He reaches into his jeans pocket, pulling out a little black velvet box which he then opens and holds out to me. There's a vintage grey-gold ring set with an emerald in the middle looking straight at me, the beauty and uniqueness of it instantly taking my breath away.