Ignitable

Ignitable - Chapter Twenty Three

Cade...

Being with Sophia, makes me feel like a king. Having dinner in the intimate French cuisine restaurant in Bath on Friday evening, to walking hand in hand along the Colonnades and enjoying all of the antique shops in Bartlett Street during Saturday; I felt like a king upon his throne with her beside me. I needed this time alone with her. I needed Sophia constantly with me this weekend, because whenever I looked at her, I saw a wonderful life standing right in front of me. Whenever I needed to talk, she listened. Whenever I needed to stay quiet, she understood. We have cuddled. We have laughed. We have even cried a little. We have loved and made love. We have made plans. We have discussed our dreams. But what is most important, is that I am doing all of those things, with her. They say that the truth can set you free, and in my case, I think it might have. For so long, for far too painfully long, my mother took all of her suffering, out on me. Although I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive her for that. With understanding why she treated me like that, comes an enormous amount of emotional freedom. I don't want to end up like my mother—functioning on the outside, dead on the inside.

I want to let the pain out, to allow happiness to come in.

I need happiness in my life.

I need love in my life.

Sophia gives me both of those things.

And I want to give them both so lovingly back to her.

Which is why I am standing here, watching her gush like an excited child at the sight of my three race horses. I watch how she curiously and enthusiastically strokes their foreheads and their velvety muzzles in an affectionate and kind way. All the attention, my thoroughbreds simply lap up. My most recently bought horse, has particularly taken a shine to my girl. He keeps prancing and snorting in his stable, his head raised high and his ears pricked forwards; trying to get more of Sophia's idolatry attention. "What's this handsome chap called?" she brightly asks, as he keeps rubbing his nose against her shoulder.

"Playboy." I tell her, leaning against the wall that's just beside the stable.

Giggling as he persistently keeps rubbing her, Sophia gifts me with one of her broadest of grins. "A befitting name, it would seem." She laughs again, turning around to now give Playboy her undivided attention. "He is especially beautiful." She coos, caressing the crest of his neck with such sweet appreciation. "Aren't you, boy?" She playfully now runs her fingers through his black forelock, to which Playboy softly snorts.

Still leaning against the wall, I watch the adorable illumination on Sophia's delighted face. I quietly become mesmerised by all that she does. From the way she girlishly giggles and excitedly stands on her toes to reach Playboy's thin and wispy mane, to how she blows away the baby fine strands of her own black hair that frame her perfectly oval face as a sudden December breeze coldly whips itself all around us. It is then that I am struck with either a moment of complete clarity, or a moment of complete madness; either one feels fantastically right to me. "Get your sexy little ass over here?" Reaching out for her, I wait for Sophia to place her hand in mine. The second that she does, I tuck her snugly into my coated chest. For just a moment, I get lost in the beauty of her slight smile and her widened grey eyes. Using my loving finger, I trace where her smile so beautifully still is, needing to profess my feelings with a desperately soft whisper. "Marry me?"

A look of complete panic, joy and excitement falls upon her flawless face. "Sorry?" She can't seem to find anymore words, too stunned to say anything else.

But I have plenty of words. I have plenty more to say. So I start saying each and every meaningful one of them. "I love you, Sophia. I know you might think that I am rushing things, but I don't think I am. I have been waiting my whole life to feel how I do when I'm with you. You and me, we work. I'm in love with you. Madly, madly in love with you. I don't want to wait. I love you now. I want to marry you now." My breaths are short, short with such eagerness. Sophia's gorgeous ashen eyes suddenly become glazed with happiness and elation. I keep staring into them, seeing every one of my dreams held within those glassy grey spheres of hers. Such a beautiful moment is being exchanged between us. A moment that could honestly stop time if it so wished. This is a moment where nothing else matters. Only this precious and beautiful moment is all that we should be aware of; locked in a bubble of complete togetherness. Leaving an invisible trail of adoration along her jawline with my thumb, I try to prompt an answer from Sophia, using only my hopeful smile.