To Find the Lie, We Must Discard the Truth

“ ‘cause if you liked it you should have put a ring on it”

The rest of the week went by with silence between Veronica and I. Even our parents noticed the tension whenever we entered the room. On top of her and I not getting along, my mom kept pushing me to officially propose to her within a month.

The guys and I are trying to find a way to do an awesome proposal, since we all know she loves big extravagant things. And right now we’re out ring-shopping. Something I never thought I would have to do.

“what about this one?” Nate asks, holding out a small cut diamond ring. “It’s not very big, but simple nonetheless.”

“I love it.” I tell him and he smiles, “but Veronica is one of those big and flashy girls.”

“what about your moms ring?” Eli suggests. We’d been at this for five hours and sill didn’t find anything, so I knew they were all tired of shopping.

My mom’s ring, personally, is beautifully. It’s not tiny, but not a blinding diamond either. There’s the little diamond in the center and surrounding it is topaz. My mother loves to bring it out and show it to new people visiting the house, which means when we were younger the guys all got a good history on the ring.

“yeah, that’s a pretty ring, and fairly large. I’m sure Veronica would love it. The only question is if I want to take that step with her. I mean, giving her my mothers ring isn’t just asking her to marry me, that means we actually have something going on between us.”

“dude, it doesn’t take a genius to know that you two have something.”

I stare at him as if I don’t know what he’s talking about, “don’t be stupid Eli, Veronica and I barely even like each other.”

The guys all laugh as if it was a joke I just said. Well, it wasn’t a joke…it was a lie. Sure we didn’t always get along, but I knew just as much as she did that we were falling for each other. Which is why I think we keep pushing the other one away more and more. Take the concert the other night for example. She wouldn’t have acted that way in the beginning.

“yeah, and I’m having sex with Sara.” Blake adds. Like I said, he won’t shut-up about the topic.

“Blake, seriously let it go. If you truly love her you’ll wait.” Nate says. Blake rolls his eyes and looks at me. I mouth ‘thank you,’ before leading the way out of the store. It was time to actually get down to business on this proposal.

Scarlet was the first one I saw when I entered my parents house. She was just sitting on the sofa flipping through channels. “Hey, are the ‘rents around?” I ask, flopping down onto the sofa next to her.

She screams and jumps, dropping the remote. “don’t ever sneak up on your sister like that ever again Ryan!” I just laugh at her reaction, “and no, they went out for a bit. Why?”

“I thought I’d pick up mom’s engagement ring.”

The face that once had a playful smile on it was now frowning. “you’re actually going to go through with it?”

“It’s going to happen with or without a proposal Scar.”

“I know…but I was able to think it wasn’t real until now. I hate to see you marry someone you don’t want to.” I stay silent, not knowing how to tell her that I did indeed have feelings for Veronica. Of course, my sister could easily see through me. “please don’t tell me you like her.”

I instantly became defensive, “you don’t know her Scarlet, so don’t start judging.”

“I don’t know her? I went to school with her Ryan! I know things about her that you don’t know.”

I sigh and run a hand through my hair. I hated arguing with my sister, but sometimes it was hard not to. “Scarlet, for one second can you just accept that it’s going to happen? There’s nothing I can do to stop it.” She mumbles something in reply that I don’t hear. “what?”

“you can find her.”

“find who?”

“Sky! Who else?”

It’s times like these I wish Sky hadn’t gotten along with everyone in my family. “That wouldn’t change anything Scar. I’d still have to marry Veronica.” I tell her.

“mom stopped the wedding once, she can do it again.”

“Scarlet! Stop doing this. I know you miss Sky. I miss Sky. But that doesn’t mean you can be rude to the woman who is soon going to be your sister-in-law. Will you at least try to get along with her?”

“fine. We’ll go shopping tomorrow. But I’m not promising you any results. If we’re not best friends, we’re not best friends.”

“thank you. now, do you know where the ring is?”

She points toward the kitchen, “it’s in the cupboard with all the recipe books. Small tin box to the right of them.”

“thanks sis.” I lean down and kiss her forehead, “I promise that it’ll work out in the end.”

“yeah, yeah. You sound like mom.” She turns the tv back on as I leave the room.

I grab the ring from the box and slip it into my back pocket before heading out. The rest of the day would be spent making an ‘I’m sorry’ dinner for Veronica.

“Ryan Ri-” she stops in the doorway of the kitchen, mid-scream. I figured I owed her something nice for yelling at her the other night. So I made a romantic dinner for just the two of us. “What’s this?”

I turn around from stirring the pasta to face her, “dinner.”

A smile slowly spreads onto her face, “I can see that. Why such a fancy dinner?” she takes a couple steps inside and sets the bags in her hand down on the counter.

“well, it’s pretty much an apology dinner for the way I acted last week.”

Her smile drops, “you made dinner to apologize?” I open my mouth to reply but she continues, “I’m such an idiot,” she mutters more to her self than me.

“what?”

Veronica pulls out a stack of DvDs and places them next to the bag. “I bought you something as my apology. You cooked for me.”

I laugh and turn the heat off on the stove before walking over to her. She watches each of my moves until I’m standing directly in front of her so that she’s between me and the counter. “I would have thought you’d want me dead if you started making my food.”

She laughs and leans up, pressing her lips against mine. Instinctively I wrap my arms around her and pull her closer to me. Veronica wraps her legs around me and I lift her onto the counter, keeping our body in contact the whole time.

The smell of smoke broke us apart. She pulled away first, laughing, “well, there goes our dinner.”

“well I’m not hungry for it anymore,” I bring her lips back to mine and she kisses back for a bit.

“mmm, you may not be, but I am.” Even after that comment she doesn’t make a move to let go of me. instead her grip tightens around my waist.

“I’m not going to carry you over there.”

She pouts, and runs her foot up and down my back a couple times before letting it slip into my back pocket like a hand would. Her foot squeezed a little which is something I can say I’ve never experienced before.

Veronica smiles when she notices she’s winning me over. But then that smile quickly turns to confusion, “what’s that?”

“what?” I ask, just as confused as she was.

Her legs untwine from around me and she slips down from the counter. Her hand reaches into the back pocket where her foot was just moments before.

“this,” right there between her pointer and thumb was the ring I had picked up from my parents earlier today.

“uh…” I didn’t know how to respond since I hadn’t planned on asking her this evening.

“who in their right mind would just toss an engagement ring into their back pocket?” she rolls her eyes in a joking manner.

“it’s better than the tin box my mom had it in.”

she laughs and hands it out for me to take, “so are you going to ask me?”

“actually, I wasn’t planning on asking you yet…” I was afraid she get at me for this statement. It sounded like something she’d flip out on. Instead though, she just nodded in an understanding way.

“well then, I’ll forget I ever saw it.” Veronica smiles and pulls me back over to the stove, “now please finish dinner because I’m starving.” I slip the ring back into my pocket and get back to cooking.

Later that night we finally slept in our room…together. It’d been awhile since that happened.

“is that really your mom’s ring?” Veronica asks, changing into her pajamas. I wish I could say I wasn’t watching as she slipped out of her clothes for today, but that would be a lie. I couldn’t help but do so. And when all she slipped on was a long t-shirt, I really wanted to do more than just sleep tonight. But obviously I had more self control than that.

“uh, yeah. It was.” I answer, climbing into the bed. Veronica walks in moment later and gets in on her side.

“what was their engagement like?” I look at her confused, “how did your dad ask her!?”

“oh…um my mom was playing with her little cousins in a tree house on her property. So she didn’t know when my dad stopped by and asked her father for his blessing. When my grandfather said yes, he found her in the treehouse playing dress up with the kids. Her cousins made her dress up as a bride and he made some joke about how she skipped a step. The kids scattered and my dad proposed then and there.”

“aw, that’s sweet.”

“yeah, I guess. I’ve heard the story so much that it’s pretty boring now.”

She slaps my arm, “a proposal story is never boring, no matter how many times you hear it.”

“fine, fine. I get it.” She smiles and leans her head against my chest.

“Ryan, are you virgin?”

I nearly choke on my breath, “what?”

“well, my friends and I were talking about us today and I realized we never did much other than kissing. And now here I am in just a t-shirt and we’re cuddling. You’re either a virgin of gay…or both.”

I laugh at her conclusion. “It’s called self-control Veronica. I’m not a virgin and I’m definitely not gay.”

“so you and Amanda?”

“we just fooled around…a lot. She got sex from every other guy in school.”

“Sky then?”

“uh, yeah. Right before she left me.”

“oh. And what about me? it’s been seven-months.”

“impatient much?”

“sorry, I’m just used to it by the first month. It’s been awhile…”

I kiss her before moving to whisper in her ear, “I care more for the girls who I wait for than the ones I just fool around with.”

Veronica pulls back and smiles up at me, “and what does that mean Ryan?”

“it means,” I pause for a second, making sure the words that were about to leave my mouth were true, “it means that I love you.”

her smile widens and she blushes, “I love you too.”

It wasn’t long after our talk that Veronica fell asleep. Now that we’d both said those three words I decided it was about time I made this wedding official.

I take the ring out of the draw next to me and slip it on her left hand before going to sleep myself. She’d be waking up to quite a surprise.
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Title Song: All The Single Ladies by Beyonce