If You Mean It

Prologue

We'd been together for almost two years. Two years since I had finally let someone into my life again after spending four years perfectly content being alone.

Four years. That's how long it took me to feel ready to love someone again.

And when I finally did, I gave him everything.

Maybe that's why I wanted a ring so badly. Not because I needed one to know I was worth something — I knew I was. I just wanted to be chosen. I wanted him to look at me one day and say, I want you to be my wife. And I wanted him to mean it.

Not because we'd been together long enough. Not because our families expected it. Not because it was simply the next thing people did after two years.

I wanted him to want it. With me.

Then he told me he had plans for our anniversary.

November 28. Baguio.

I had always wanted to go back there with him. The funny thing was, the last time we went, we fought so much. We had only been together for four months, still figuring each other out — still learning what annoyed the other person, how to argue, when to give space, when to apologize. It wasn't exactly the romantic Baguio trip I had imagined.

But I still wanted to go back.

So when he mentioned it, I didn't immediately think anything of it. At least, I tried not to.

Maybe he just remembered that I wanted to go. Maybe he wanted to make our second anniversary special. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was just being my boyfriend.

But then there was that sentence.

I have plans for our anniversary.

And suddenly my brain had a whole different set of plans. A ring. A question. Baguio. November 28. Two years.

I actually laughed at myself. Because once you start hoping for something, every little thing suddenly feels like a clue. And I really, really didn't want to be that girl.

But still.

What if?

What if Baguio wasn't just another trip? What if his plans weren't just plans for our anniversary? What if, after everything we'd been through, he had finally decided that I was the person he wanted to spend forever with?

I didn't know. And maybe that was the hardest part.

Because I could handle not having a ring. I knew I had worth with or without one. What I couldn't handle was spending years wondering whether he ever wanted one to begin with.

I didn't need him to marry me tomorrow. I just needed to know we were walking toward the same future. That when I imagined a home, a family, a life somewhere far away, I wasn't the only one imagining the other person standing beside me.

I had already included him in my dreams. I just didn't know if he had included me in his.

So I waited. And hoped. And tried not to think too much about November 28.

I failed miserably.

And maybe that was how it all started.

Not with a ring. Not with a proposal. Not even with Baguio.

It started with a question I was too afraid to ask —

What if he really was planning to choose me?

And an even scarier one hiding underneath it:

What if he wasn't?