In Five Years: A Novel - Rebecca Serle Page 0,6

music lowers.

“David, there are people watching.” But I’m smiling. Finally.

“Dannie, I love you. I know neither one of us is a particularly sentimental person and I don’t tell you this stuff a lot, but I want you to know that our relationship isn’t just part of some plan for me. I think you’re extraordinary, and I want to build this life with you. Not because we’re the same but because we fit, and because the more time goes on the more I cannot imagine my life taking place without you.”

“Yes,” I say.

He smiles. “I think maybe you should let me ask the question.”

Someone close breaks out in laughter.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Please ask.”

“Danielle Ashley Kohan, will you marry me?”

He opens the box and inside is a cushion-cut diamond flanked by two triangular stones set in a simple platinum band. It’s modern, clean, elegant. It’s exactly me.

“You can answer now,” he tells me.

“Yes,” I say. “Absolutely. Yes.”

He reaches up and kisses me, and the dining room breaks out in applause. I hear the snaps of lenses, the oohs and aahs of generous goodwill from surrounding patrons.

David takes the ring out of the box and slides it onto my finger. It takes a second to waddle over my knuckle—my hands are swollen from the champagne—but when it does, it sits there like it has always been there.

A waiter appears out of thin air with a bottle of something. “Compliments of the chef,” he says. “Congratulations!”

David sits back down. He holds my hand across the table. I marvel at the ring, turning my palm back and forth in the candlelight.

“David,” I say. “It’s gorgeous.”

He smiles. “It looks so good on you.”

“Did you pick this out?”

“Bella helped,” he says. “I was worried she was going to ruin the surprise. You know her, she’s terrible at keeping anything from you.”

I smile. I squeeze his hand. He’s right about that, but I don’t need to tell him. That is the thing about relationships: it’s not necessary to say everything. “I had no idea,” I say.

“I’m sorry it was so public,” he says, gesturing around us. “I couldn’t resist. This place is practically begging for it.”

“David,” I say. I look at him. My future husband. “I want you to know I’d suffer through ten more public proposals if it meant I got to marry you.”

“No you wouldn’t,” he says. “But you can convince me of anything, and it’s one of the things I love about you.”

* * *

Two hours later we’re home. Hungry and buzzing off champagne and wine, we crouch around the computer, ordering Thai food from Spice online. This is us. Spend seven hundred dollars on dinner, come home to eat eight-dollar fried rice. I never want that to change.

I want to put on sweatpants, per usual, but something tells me not to—not tonight, not yet. If I were different, someone else—Bella, for example—I’d have lingerie to wear. I’d have bought some this week. I’d put on a matching bra and underwear and hover by the door. Fuck the pad thai. But then I probably wouldn’t be engaged to David right now.

We’re not big drinkers, and the champagne and wine have gotten to both of us. I edge myself farther onto the couch. I put my feet in David’s lap. He squeezes the arch of my foot, kneading the tender place my heels are unkind to. I feel the buzzing in my stomach move upward to my head, until my eyes are being pulled closed like blinds. I yawn. Within a minute, I’m asleep.

Chapter Three

I wake up slowly. How long have I been asleep? I roll over and look at the clock on the nightstand: 10:59 p.m. I stretch my legs. Did David move me to bed? The sheets feel crisp and cool around me, and I weigh just closing my eyes again and drifting back to sleep—but then I’d miss this, our engagement night, and I force them open. We still have more champagne to drink, and we need to have sex. That’s a thing you should do on the night you get engaged. I yawn, blinking, and then sit up, my breath exiting my body in a rush. Because I’m not in our bed. I’m not even in our apartment. I’m wearing a formal dress, red, beaded around the neckline. And I’m somewhere I’ve never been before.

I could tell you I think I’m dreaming, but I don’t, not really. I can feel my legs and arms and the frenetic beating of my own