The Birthday celebration didn’t end there. We made our way back home after our walking adventure to get ready for the nighttime activities. Dimples said to get dressed and we would head out to dinner. We parted for about an hour. He went to his house, I went to my house and he said he’d be back to pick me up. I hurried inside feeling all warm and loved and hungry! I quickly decided on my revealing, sleek, black dress. You really can’t go wrong with a black dress. I put on red heels and silver jewelry and curled my hair. I applied my make up and at the very second I put on my coat I heard the horn beep and the sound of the text come through to say “here”

I walked outside and approached the car and he was looking dapper all dressed up and showered and smelling delicious. I got in and he starred at me. For quite a few seconds it was silent as he just starred at me and smiled. Finally he said “You look beautiful.” And with that I felt beautiful. It is always nice for a man to tell you that. I technically never need that, but it’s always nice to hear, but this was different. It was like he really meant it. He thought I was beautiful. Not just on the outside, but on the inside. And I could feel it. His genuine pleasure in just looking at me, feeling whatever he was feeling at that moment radiated off of him and hit me like a wave of comfort. It’s hard to explain, but anyone who has been as unlucky in love as I have, revels in the genuine. In the sheer honesty that a moment like that brings you and I loved him. Not in the way I had loved anyone before.

I loved him for the way he looked at me, I loved him for the passion he brought to the world, I loved him for the fact that he wore his heart on his sleeve and on his face. When he was happy, you knew it, when he was upset, you knew it. There was a simplistic beauty to him and I was falling deeper and deeper in love with him with every passing minute. And I couldn’t stop myself. No matter how hard I wanted him to suck or be awful or be like all the others, he wasn’t. He was real. He loved me. He was mine. We headed back to the restaurant of our first date. We walked in, on a Monday and it was empty except for two other patrons in the whole place. We ordered our dinner and sat at the same table and I gazed at him with as much love and admiration and strength and honesty as humanly possible. This. This had been an amazing day.

Then he hands me an envelope. He says “Open it” I said after the necklace he had given me earlier that month and the day we had, he didn’t need to give me anything else. I had everything I could have ever imagined. Then he said “Wait, do you know what it is?” I didn’t and told him so and then again he said “Open it” So I did. inside the envelope was a hand written note. The note said how much he loved me, how having me in his life had changed him for the better and that he couldn’t wait for all the blessings that were ahead of us. Again, I believed every word. Then I noticed the play tickets inside. To the show I had mentioned weeks prior I wanted to see. I was beside myself. Not only with such a great gift, but with the fact that he was listening. He had forethought. He heard me say something I wanted to see or do and he thought it would be a perfect time to surprise me with such a thing.

That was what took my breath away. We finished our meal and went to the bar for one more drink and they brought me out a little cake with happy birthday written on the plate in chocolate and a candle. I blew it out, but I had already received the one wish I ever dreamt of. He was standing right next to me.