So I shoved the ring box back into my pocket, and we spent the rest of the evening pretending everything was fine. We walked. We laughed a little. We shared fries from a greasy food truck on the way home.
On the surface, it almost looked normal. But the whole vibe had shifted. I was stuck in my own head, replaying every second.
Should I have waited longer?
Was it the wrong moment?
Did I misread everything?
Did I not know him as well as I thought I did?
I didn’t ask him any of that. I was scared that if I pushed, if I looked too closely, the whole thing would shatter. So I chose the easier pain: silence.
I told myself it wasn’t a big deal.
But that night, lying next to him in bed, staring at the ceiling while he scrolled his phone like nothing monumental had just happened, I felt it. A tiny fracture in the middle of something I thought was solid.
I didn’t know it then, but that quiet, confusing “not right now” was the beginning of the end.
After that first proposal, a whole year went by.
We didn’t talk about it. Not really. You’d think something that big—someone getting down on one knee with a ring—would demand a follow-up conversation, some deep talk you can’t just sweep under the rug.
But we did. Or at least he did. And I let him.
We still did all the usual couple stuff. We went on trips. We had lazy Sundays watching shows in bed. We went to birthdays, barbecues, double dates. From the outside, nothing had changed. If anything, people probably thought we were getting closer to that next step.
But every time marriage came up, even as a joke, I felt that same sting from the beach. That moment when I was on my knee and he said, “Not right now. Not yet.”
Sometimes my friends would tease, “So, when’s the wedding, Meera?” and I’d laugh it off, say something like, “We’re taking our time,” while my stomach twisted inside.
The question started looping louder and louder:
If he really wants to marry me, why isn’t he ready now?
We were almost thirty. We’d been together for four years. At some point, “not yet” starts sounding a lot like “not ever.”
I tried to rationalize it. I told myself he just needed more time. Maybe he had his own invisible timeline in his head. Maybe he wanted to feel more financially secure. Maybe he had fears he didn’t know how to explain.
But there were nights, lying awake, listening to his breathing next to me, when the thought crept in:
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