“Heads, we get married; tails, we break up,” he says holding up a gold coin to my face. We sit in a café by a window where the rain drops hit the glass like falling pellets.
“What?” I say placing my cup of coffee down on the table and wiping my lips. “Can you repeat that?” I don’t know whether it is all the clink and clatter from the kitchen, or the cracks of thunder outside that had kept me from hearing him, but I hadn’t understood a single word he said.
He gives me a look of disapproval and repeats himself. “Heads, we get married; tails, we break up.” A sudden wave of bewilderment runs through me as I take in what he is saying. I feel a mixture of disappointment and anger at the fact that he is leaving our relationship up to fate to decide with a simple flip of a coin.
“You’re kidding, right?” I say trying to convince myself that the serious face he has painted is nothing more than that: a painted face hiding a grin of amusement underneath.
“I’m serious,” he says. I stare into the pools of his ocean blue eyes trying to uncover the falsehood of his words, but they only speak the truth. I feel myself suddenly highly irritated by his crazy idea of a proposal and I stand abruptly and slap him. His face swings away from the window and the café is suddenly silent.
I watch him, expecting him to turn toward me only to smile saying something along the lines of “And to think I was going to pay 150 bucks to get a tattoo on my face, now I have one for free, and it’s in color!”
But he never turns.
I feel tension fill the air and dozens of eyes glaring at me so harshly that I can no longer tolerate the feeling and run out of there without much thought to where I am going. The rain falls harshly around me as I start nowhere in particular. All I want to do is walk for a moment somewhere where I can think over what happened and what I did. However, when I hear the café’s door swing open, I begin to run. I don’t turn back even though I hear his voice calling behind me; so hurt, so filled with pain.
I come to a stop at the end of the street and just before a small park and look about confused as to where I should head next.
“Stop!” he says grabbing hold of me and turning me toward him. “Please, listen to me,” he begs looking at me kindly from under his damp blonde hair. I look into his eyes as I think of whether or not I should listen and decide that he at least deserves to explain himself.
“Okay,” I whisper quietly.
A gentle smile spreads over his lips that quiver slightly. “Look, I know exactly what you’re thinking,” he begins. I stare blankly and he laughs saying, “Okay, I almost know exactly what you’re thinking.” He pauses before continuing, “But, you’re wrong. I know I joke a lot, and am hardly serious, ever, but tonight I was—I am.” He pauses again and pulls out the same coin from the café. He holds it up to me saying, “When I said, well, you remember, I only said it because of this—” he places the coin in my hand with the face looking up at me.
“It landed on heads?” I ask.
He smirks as he turns over the coin saying, “It’s the same on both sides.”
My eyes widen and begin to fill with tears as I realize what this means. My vision starts to blur, but even so I can see him gazing at me with warm, tender eyes as he holds my face in his hands and wipes away my tears.
“Sorry for doing this wrong,” he says getting down on one knee. “I guess the best way to do this is just to say,” he pulls out a beautiful silver ring from his pocket, “Will you marry me?”
I put a hand to my lips and feel the cold of the coin still in my hand. I look at it and then at him and say with a smile, “Heads, we get married; tails, we break up.” A smile spreads on his lips and I flip the coin.
It lands on heads.