28 As long as I am with y*u

Someone knocks on my door. If it’s uncle Gus I’m going to start shouting until someone calls the police. Luckily, when I open the door, it’s Stefan who is standing under the doorframe. 

“Hi, doll, am I interrupting?” He asks as he lets himself in. “Are you ok? You look really upset.” 

I shake my head energetically. “No, not at all.” I don’t want to tell him the nonsense Gus just told me. It’s so ridiculous there’s no point in repeating any of it.

“I wouldn’t judge you if you were nervous. It’s a big change. I was thinking about it a lot last night,” he says with a smile. 

I frown confused and then I remember what he’s talking about. The pregnancy test! We agreed that I would take it today. 

“Oh, sure... it is,” I have to forget about Gus delusions, I need to focus on what’s really important. 

“So, are you ready to now?” Stefan hands me a little white and pink box, it’s a pregnancy test. 

My heart stops for a second. Am I ready? I make a face, I don’t know if I am, but the time seems to be now and I must face it. I take the box, reluctantly, and head to the bathroom. I read the instructions like a thousand times, I don’t want to mess this up. When I feel like I have memorized the simple instructions I take the test and go back to my room. Three minutes and then we’ll know. I sit on the bed next to Stefan. He holds my free hand with tenderness. 

“Would you marry me?” He asks out of the blue. 

“What?” I ask baffled. Is he joking?

“Tell me, Olivia, would you marry me?” He repeats. 

I look down at the pregnancy test on my lap, but Stefan takes me by the chin to lift my face so our eyes meet.

“Answer me before looking at the result. Would you be my wife?”  

My heart starts racing. “You are asking for real?” I whisper.

We have known each other only for a few months and I’m still so young to get married... there are a million reasons to say no, but I love him a million times more. There’s no one in this world I’d rather be with. Stefan is everything to me. 

“Yes... yes, I want to marry you,” I exclaim bursting with happiness. 

Stefan kisses me passionately and puts his arms around me. We are getting married! I can’t believe this. I feel the excitement in my entire body, every pore, every hair, every inch of my skin is filled with happiness. Stefan takes a tiny box out of his left pocket. 

“I guess this is yours now,” he says and opens the box. Inside there a golden engagement ring with a huge diamond. Stefan takes my hand and places the ring on my finger. My eyes start to fill up with tears. 

“When did you get this?” I ask with my voice charged with emotion.

“What do you think I was doing all morning?” He replies before he kisses me again. 

“This is so crazy,” I exclaim excitedly. 

“It is exactly what it’s supposed to be,” he says as he holds my hands in his. “Are you ready to know?” 

I nod and look at the test’s little results window. It’s positive. I take a deep breath. These have been the most frenetic five minutes of my life and I haven’t even left my room. Stefan looks happy, genuinely happy, I can’t believe I ever doubt he would stay with me thru this. 

We decide to stay in my room, I don’t want to go downstairs and have uncle Gus trying to ruin my happiness with his made-up stories. We lay in the bed next to each other holding hands, we don’t talk much, I guess we are both processing what just happened. Every now and then I look at my finger, I can’t believe I’m wearing an engagement ring. 

After a while, we hear a lot of noise downstairs. The family is back from the zoo. I don’t want to join them, but it would be rude to stay here and also, I’m kind of hungry. Stefan too, so he agrees to go downstairs with me. I take off my ring before stepping out of the room. 

“What are you doing?” Stefan asks upset. 

“I don’t want people to see it before I tell my parents,” I explain.

“Then let’s tell them right now,” he suggests. 

“No, I need to talk to them in private. There are too many people here and they have a lot going on right now. Everyone will be gone tomorrow and then I’ll tell them.” I don’t know how my parents are going to react, but I can guess my mom is not going to be happy and I don’t feel like making a scene in front of all of our relatives. 

“As you wish, doll,” Stefan replies, although I can see in his face that he’s not pleased that I took the ring off.

I go downstairs feeling restless, I fear how my family is going to behave with Stefan. I’d rather have him go back to his apartment and come back once the Ricci’s annual gathering is over, but I would never tell him that; besides, we are getting married, so my family is going to have to accept him eventually. We enter the living room holding hands and the first person we encounter is Mike.

“I guess you will be staying for dinner,” he tells Stefan in a bitter tone. 

“Of course, he is,” my dad, standing at earshot, replies.

Stefan smirks at Mike, like saying ‘there’s your answer’. 

“This suck, we should be somewhere else celebrating our engagement,” Stefan whispers to my ear. 

“I know, I wouldn’t judge you if you decided to skip dinner,” I reply in a lower voice. 

“No way! I won’t leave you here. Where ever you are, that’s where I want to be,” he grabs my left hand and gently kisses it on the back. I shiver. “Although, I warn you I’m going to be taking you to my apartment tonight.”

“What? No, I can’t. My whole family is here, I can’t leave, my parents will get mad at me.” I explain trying not to raise my voice. 

“So, what if they get mad? What would they do? It’s not like they can forbid us to get married or prevent you from giving birth.” He jokes. “Besides, you just said it, your whole family is here, they won’t even notice you are gone.”  

After dinner, my mom goes up to her room claiming she has a headache and my dad drinks vodka with Gus and Patrick. Stefan is right, no one pays attention to me when I leave. I even get to go up to my room, grab my toothbrush and a change of clothes for tomorrow, and nobody even notices it. 

“So, what kind of wedding would you like?” Stefan asks me once we arrive at his place.

“I don’t know. I never thought of that... a fancy one, I guess.” 

Stefan bursts into laughter. “What does that mean?” 

“I’m not sure...” 

“Oh, come on! Every girl has thought of the wedding of her dreams.” 

I meditate on that. Not me. It’s not that I never thought of getting married, but I always assumed it would be something I’d be doing later in life and so I didn’t give much thought to the planning process. 

 “I guess I want a wedding that is fun and tasteful,” I reply trying to visualize what I want. “Probably a small one.” Especially since I have no friends. 

“I guess that’s for the best. Planning a small wedding will be simpler and we don’t have time on our side.”  

I realize he is right. We can’t afford the luxury of a long engagement, especially if I don’t want to look like a white balloon on the day of the ceremony. 

Stefan falls asleep almost immediately after we go to bed, but I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about what the future holds for us, all the changes I will face in the next months and the excitement prevents me from sleeping. I feel nervous, but mostly happy. I look around wondering if this will be my home from now on or if we will move to another place. It would be nice to live in a place with a garden where our child can play, maybe we could even get a dog or a cat. I smile thinking about it. At the end of the day, I don’t care about the house, or the garden or anything as long as I am with Stefan.