After eight years together, I caught my boyfriend telling his best friend I was “not wife material”
“Oh, you know my boyfriend. He likes to take his time,” I said with a fake smile.
Luke squeezed my knee under the table and quickly changed the subject to football. He was good at that.
My boyfriend was charming, attentive, and always quick with a joke that made everyone forget what they’d asked.
***
Later that night, when we were brushing our teeth side by side, I tried again. Gently.
“Sarah’s wedding got me thinking,” I said. “Have you put any more thought into us? About, you know, the next step?”
“He likes to take his time.”
Luke spat into the sink, rinsed, then met my eyes in the mirror.
“Em, we’ve talked about this. I want to do it right. We need more savings. A house would be nice first. The timing isn’t there yet.”
“But it’s been eight years, Luke.”
“And it’ll be the rest of our lives,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “What’s the rush?”
I wanted to push, but I didn’t.
Instead, I nodded, the way I always did, and told myself he had a point.
“I want to do it right.”
Houses were expensive, and his promotion wasn’t final yet.
Marriage was just paperwork anyway, wasn’t it?
That’s the joke Luke liked to make whenever the topic came up at dinner with his family.
“It’s just a piece of paper,” he’d say, grinning. “We’re already a team.”
But I’d noticed, too, how his bank account stayed in his name only, and mine stayed in mine. He called it practical.
“Just for now,” he always added.
“It’s just a piece of paper.”
***
I climbed into bed that night and listened to him breathe beside me. I told myself I was being impatient and that he’d propose when he was ready. I had no idea that one ordinary Tuesday and the front door opening at the wrong time, was about to undo every story I’d been telling myself.
***
I came home from the gym earlier than usual that Tuesday. My class had been canceled, and I jogged the last two blocks because it had started to drizzle. At the apartment, Luke’s car keys sat in the little bowl by the door because he was also off work that day.
I told myself I was being impatient.
