Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 18

Her eyes soften, just barely.

He keeps going. “I think about you when you’re not around. And when you are... everything feels sharper. You challenge me. You frustrate me. You make me feel things I didn’t know I could feel again.”

There’s a breath of silence.

Then he says, “That day at the fair, when you bought us those ridiculous matching headbands... and you made me pose like an idiot in front of that stuffed dragon? I think I fell for you right there.”

Inez lets out the smallest laugh. “You looked ridiculous.”

“I know,” he says, smiling now. “And happy.”

Another pause.

“I want to be brave for you. Like you’re brave. I want to stop running from things that scare me just because they matter too much. So... I’m asking you something I should’ve asked a long time ago.”

He stands up, walks around the table, and kneels beside her chair. Offers the pink rose like it’s sacred.

“Inez... will you be my girlfriend?”

She stares at him.

The air is holding its breath.

“You... idiot,” she whispers. “You absolute, confusing, wonderful idiot.”

He looks terrified.

“I hated you last night,” she adds. “You kept avoiding me. I thought you were done with me.”

“I wasn’t,” he says softly. “I was just... scared you’d see through me.”

“I already do,” she replies.

And then—quietly, gently—she leans in and kisses his forehead. “Yes.”

James lets out a soft exhale beside me, and I blink back a smile that feels a little too full in my chest.

“They deserve this,” I say.

James nods, voice quiet. “They really do.”

And for a moment, even though the wind keeps moving and the stars keep flickering, everything feels still. Like the world gave us this one pocket of time to watch love happen—unrushed, unguarded, unafraid.

And maybe it wasn’t our moment.

But it was still beautiful.

“Walk with me?” James says softly, his hand already gesturing toward the shoreline, away from the candlelight and the whispers of new love.

I glance at the table where Tim and Inez are now leaning into each other, completely absorbed, a new rhythm settling between them. I nod.

We walk side by side in the quiet, our feet sinking slightly into the damp sand. The ocean stretches out in front of us, ink-blue and endless, the waves lapping softly as if listening too.

James breaks the silence first. “Thank you.”

I look at him. “For what?”

“For helping Tim pull that off. He was a wreck. I wouldn’t have known where to start.”

I smile a little. “He was shaking like a leaf.”

James chuckles. “I thought he was gonna pass out when she said yes.”

We walk a little farther before he adds, “You have a knack for that, you know.”

“For what?”

“Helping people. Fixing things that seem too broken to fix.”