The Suitor Asks A Question

If this is your first time here please begin the story here with part one
part two
part three

I loved every minute of Europe. Well, except for the ones that I spent crying on the phone with my mom in the hotel stairway in Amsterdam. Those were not very good minutes. I missed home, and almost everyone else in the group wanted to spend the whole time getting stoned and wandering through the red light district. I didn't enjoy those minutes days at all.

But this is not a time for a sob story. This is a time for a love story.

I had a feeling while I was in Europe that Jake would propose within two weeks of my return. I honestly thought he would do it sooner, but I was trying to be at least a little realistic.

My plane landed in San Francisco on August 3rd, 2007 at 12:15am. While flying from D.C. to S.F. my friend Nat and I were giggling about how romantic it would be if Jake were at the airport waiting for me and proposed on the spot. She had her camera ready when we landed...just in case. But it was just my parents. Not that I wasn't happy to see them. I had missed them too. I just...well, wanted to see the man I was in love with. I was excited to get to be home for more than four days with him.

We, the parents and I, grabbed a bite to eat at IHOP and then headed home. Five hours later we were there. During the drive I blabbed about my trip for a while, and dozed off for a bit as well. I never figured out how long my flight actually was with time zone changes and everything, but I think I had been up for 40-45 hours by the time we got back home. We, my roommates in Europe, didn't exactly spend our last night in Spain sleeping.

When we arrived home Jake was there waiting. He had spent the night with my brother so he could see me as soon as possible. I was SOOOO happy to see him and ran immediately into his arms. In my mind it was very much like this:

or this

or even this

In any case, I was very happy to be home. Once I was able to pry myself away, I took a shower, changed clothes and decided that it would be best if I just stayed up all day and got used to the time zone right away. Jake, not wanting to leave me, offered to take me to town for some breakfast. On our way there we were talking about how great it was that I was home and how happy we were to finally be together. He said something to the effect of "The hard part is over, you're home now," to which I jokingly replied, "Well, we don't really know. We haven't even been in the same country for more than three weeks before." He asked if I’d like to go to dinner that night. I told him that I thought I would be too tired, but we could the next night.

Suddenly, instead of breakfast, which I was beginning to really want, Jake said we needed to make a detour to his parents’ house to let the dogs out because they were out of town. But, considering I was sleep deprived and ecstatic just to be with him, I didn't think anything of his sudden change in direction. I patiently sat in the truck while he went inside to deal with the dogs. I wondered what he was doing in there because I could see him pacing back and forth through the whole house. But I was starting to dose off, I didn't wonder  too hard about it.

He finally came out of the house and opened my door. I swung my legs out so I was facing out of the truck. He looked at me for a long time and then he kissed me gently and hugged me hard. I remember that I could feel his heart pounding, quite literally punching me in the chest. His arms were shaking very badly. I thought to myself "Man, we need to get breakfast right away or he's going to faint," and then I heard something. He was fumbling behind my back, but why? I heard the glove box open. Hmm, what could he be looking for in there? And then…

The click. The click I somehow knew by heart. The click of a jewelry box opening. Specifically, a ring box. Then it all fell into place. I suddenly understood. Trembling, Jake leaned back and brought the velvety teal box into view.

"Rachel, will you marry me?"

Now, if Jake was telling this story, he would say that I paused here for a very long time. Long enough for him to become nervous. But the truth is I was simply stunned into silence. It wasn't unexpected. I knew he would propose. I just was thinking it would be within two weeks, not two hours. It quickly made sense why he’d been acting just a little weird all morning. But the ring! It was exactly what I had always wanted, and I didn't remember ever telling him that. Princess cut, high setting, white gold. And it was way bigger than I even imagined I would have. In my head I was saying "YES! YES! YES!" but apparently my mouth was not doing the same.

I looked up at him and knew by the look of panic in his eyes that I had yet to answer aloud. I remember thinking very distinctly, Silly man, of course I’m going to say yes. "YES!" and I kissed him again. He let out the breath he had been holding for who knows how long. He slid the ring on my finger and it was just a little too big. Luckily there was a jeweler in town. In the car we went. I practically ran into the store wanting to showcase my new fiancé and my new ring. The jeweler was somehow able to determine that I had just received it, perhaps because neither of us could stop smiling or perhaps because our hands were grasped so tight they were white, and told us he'd have it done for us by the afternoon.

Then we had to wait. Well, we didn't have to, but I wanted to tell our parents first. His mom was out of town and doesn't answer the phone while she's driving, and my parents were asleep, having just completed a marathon drive to and from San Francisco in one night. Ugh. So we waited, and waited, and waited. We kept bumping into people we knew in town and it was very hard not to just blab it to everyone, but somehow we made it.

Finally around two my mom woke up. “How was your day, guys?”

“Just fine. We got some breakfast, let (in-laws’) dogs out for a bit, got engaged, went to the park, grabbed some lunch…”

“Oh that’s nice.” Then we saw the realization of what we had said set in. “Wait, what?”

My parents knew we would be engaged that day. They were in on the plan. The plan, I learned, had been coming together for some time. Jake and Brother had spent the day before I got home making a banana cream pie, my favorite. The plan was that Jake would take me to dinner at the romantic restaurant in town. The restaurant my brother happened to work in as a dish washer. The plan was that after dinner we would order dessert to go, and Brother would pack up our pie with the ring in it. The plan was that we would go to a romantic lake nearby, one at which we had had many dates. I would open the pie box, find the ring, he would get down on one knee, I would squeal with delight, say yes as the sun set over the lake, and we’d live happily ever after.

But I ruined the plan.

I made a stupid joke. Apparently something is lost in translation when I’m jet lagged and haven’t slept in two days and it sounded like I said "Well, we'll see." When I said I was too tired to go to dinner Jake became extra worried about what I had said and didn’t want to wait until the next night to propose. He wanted to make sure we were on the same page as soon as possible. So he proposed right away, standing in his parents’ driveway at 8am.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And we did live happily ever after