Second Chance at Forever | C. Cullen

026

He proposed.

She bolted up in bed, blinking quickly as her eyes searched out the familiar ring.

"Abigail?" his alarmed voice said anxiously from behind her and she blinked again, turning back to him as he reached for her. She eagerly went to him and cuddled against him, allowing him to nuzzle her even though she wasn't upset.

"We're engaged."

Her words gave him pause and he slowly look back, eyes tender by unsure and guarded.

"Yes," he said softly, pride filling his voice.

A large grin broke over her face and she continued her habit of leaning up to drown him in kisses. "Thank god," she said with a sigh. "I thought I dreamt all last night."

"You dream about me?" he said, his voice full of childlike hope.

"All the time."

"And about becoming engaged to you?"

She nodded and smiled, caressing his cheek. "And marrying you." She paused. "And getting birthday fingered."

He paused and the noise be let out was halfway between a groan and a laugh. "Baby, I was just able to calm down. What are you doing to me?"

She giggled and leaned up for a kiss just as the warning alarm went off. She glowered at it and reached over to dismiss it and sighed.

"Let's go get married today so I don't have to go to work."

"While I would love to, I'm pretty sure Alice wouldn't speak to you for the next century if you denied her this opportunity. She never got to plan our first one, you know."

His words made her pause and her mind rolled over them, and slowly she turned to him. She had gotten up to gather her clothes, but she wasn't sure what to make of what he said. Did he just forget sometimes that she was no longer a vampire, or did this mean he would turn her?

"The next century, huh?" she murmured. "You know I need to be a vampire for that to happen."

He froze and he suddenly refused to look right at her. His avoidance made her heart drop and she understood immediately what it meant. Oh god, he messed up, he doesn't want to change me. She felt sick. He loved her, he wanted her, but he wasn't willing to turn her. How was that to work? She would get old and wrinkly and die while he continued to look like an Adonis? And once she was dead for good just move on?

"Never mind. It was a mistake, I understand."

Swallowing thickly she rushed for the bathroom and closed the door quickly, thinking of locking it, but she knew she couldn't shut him out like that. Quickly she shucked off her clothes and got into the shower so the warm water could wash away her tears before she went back out to him again. She took longer than she should've in there because they wouldn't stop coming, but finally she got herself under control and climbed out. She dried off and dressed in her scrubs, brushing our her hair and braiding it. As she did so, she promised herself she wouldn't cry in front of him, though her mind went a mile a minute trying to figure out what she should say to him. After all, how were things to progress if she died again in sixty years time and he was still as perfect and pristine and unkillable as he was right then?

Taking from his cue, she refused to look at him, but smiled brightly nonetheless. "I hope I remembered my badge. Usually it's in here, but I might've left it on my other scrubs." She hummed as she pulled up her purse and rummaged through it, shoving her phone and charger in it, ignoring the slight tremor in her fingers and pushing it off as lack of sleep.

He was quiet, too quiet, and for a moment she wondered if he left, but the hole in her heart would be much larger if he had. Granted it was growing by the moment, but it was manageable when he was close.