Sweet Romance11 min read
The Two Proposals: A Ring, A Choice, A Meal
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I still remember the day Donovan asked me to “get engaged.”
"I thought it would be funny," he said, his voice flat, like he was reading a text message out loud.
"Funny?" I touched the cold silver ring he slid onto my finger that night. "This is a joke?"
He laughed. "It was a prize, Chiyo. I thought we'd laugh about it later."
"I don't want a joke," I said.
"There you go being dramatic again," Donovan shrugged. "Girls have to be more coy. You can't be the one to say these things."
He was right about one thing: I had learned to be patient around him. For six years I had learned to wait while he went quiet, waited while he flirted, waited while he sighed about responsibilities that were never mine. I had whispered hints about marriage, about wanting to be taken seriously, and he had always turned away with a small smile and a lesson on "how girls should be."
Then one night, the cheap silver ring from some Cartier counter raffle was pinned to my finger like a joke.
"What were you thinking?" Mallory asked me the week I took it off and let it fall into the trash.
"He thought it would be funny," I repeated, but my voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to.
"Did you at least laugh?" she asked.
I thought of the way his face had been calm, untouched, when he told me he had bought a ring for Janessa at Cartier. He had come into our office one afternoon, and I watched his hands shake with a different kind of pride. He showed me a photo: Janessa's smile, the Cartier bag, the receipt. He said: "She deserved it for helping me with the event."
"You gave me a raffle ring," I told him later, and he pretended not to hear.
That time—my time with Donovan—was a long slow ache. The ache was not always pain so much as absence: the absence of being chosen.
Then Chandler Bright showed up and did something different.
"I want to marry you," he said one quiet evening, and his voice did not wobble. He had put thought into it, and the thinking showed.
"What?" I blinked. I was still opening my apartment door after work when I saw the floor strewn with rose petals and a three-tiered cake with two tiny sugar figures that looked like us. He dropped to one knee in our small living room.
"Chiyo," Chandler said, "I thought of a hundred ways to do this. I thought about a flash mob, a concert, a skydiving stunt—"
"You terrible man." I laughed before I could stop myself. "You had me picturing parachutes."
He pulled a small box from his pocket. The ring that opened inside caught the light and sent it back: not a prize ring, not a joke, not a show-off spectacle—just a neat, honest diamond set in white gold.
"I know you don't like fuss," he said. "I want to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?"
"Yes," I said, and the word came out like relief. It was not the relief of someone saved; it was the relief of someone finally seen.
After he asked me, Chandler wanted our families to meet. He told me, "They want to meet the woman who's going to be their daughter-in-law. I want them to know you."
My chest stung. "My father—" I began, and then stopped. My parents had divorced when I was six. My father had remarried and stopped looking back. I had told Donovan this once, and he had turned and relayed it like a rumor. His mother, on the phone later, scolded me with a curious softness. "Single-parent families," she said, "sometimes it shows in children." She sounded polite. She sounded ready to judge.
Chandler turned, grabbed my hand, and hugged me. "It's okay," he said. "Let them meet your mother. I'll go with you."
The day Chandler's parents came to the city, I was so nervous I arranged my hair twice. Diane Burton—Chandler's mother—was warm from the moment she stepped in. Yale Blackwell—his father—nodded like a judge leaning toward approval.
"You're the one," Diane said to me later, pulling a napkin over her knee. "Chandler has never looked at anyone like that."
"He's always looked at me," Chandler answered, almost sheepish. "With you it's different. He relaxes."
I felt myself relax too.
That evening, Diane took me by the hand and told me, "When you're ready, we'll have dinner. Families can talk when it's quiet. You don't have to do anything you don't want."
When my mother Martha came to stay over the holiday weekend, she watched Chandler closely. "He cooks?" she asked, surprised. "Good. Bring him next weekend; we can talk."
"You like him?" I whispered.
She patted my shoulder. "He treats you like a person. That's what matters."
In the back of my head there was always Donovan's shadow. Sometimes I would see him in a crowd, play-acting a sympathy that never reached his eyes. Once, months before Chandler and I got engaged, Donovan had bowed his head and told me solemnly, "I can change. For you, I would change." I had believed him then, as one believes a cracked promise.
When Chandler's parents asked to visit my small neighborhood and meet my mother, I wanted to say no. "My father—" I began again.
Chandler silenced me by pressing his forehead to mine. "If you want, we'll only let your mother come. Whatever you decide is fine."
When Martha met Chandler's parents, she smiled, and later, when we were alone, she turned to me with that tidy stubbornness she had always had.
"You've been waiting a long time for someone to see you," she said. "Don't give that up."
"I won't," I said.
When we went to pick up Donovan's father—no, that never happened. Donovan's circle had always been different: smoother and flimsier at the same time. He had been charming to their faces, and cruel in other rooms. When his "gift" to Janessa was found out—when the prize ring story leaked through someone in his office—I felt something inside me break and close at once.
"Was she more expensive than me?" I asked Mallory one rainy night.
Mallory stared at me. "That wasn't the point, Chiyo."
"No," I said. "It was the point. He bought a real ring for someone else, and gave me a game prize."
Words in the past tense have a habit of making things final. Donovan's behavior didn't explode in a single chapter; it whispered over years. Yet when Janessa's name was said aloud at the wrong dinner table, everything changed quickly.
We arranged the family dinner because Chandler wanted both families to meet properly—a tidy evening of introductions and food. Diane had reserved a private room at a restaurant near the river. Yale sat across from me and offered small, steady smiles. Martha sat next to me and kept her hand lightly on my knee like a small steady anchor.
We were half through the main course when a server approached with a smartphone on a stand. "Excuse me," the server said, "there's a call for Mr. Donovan Zheng. He asked if he could speak to Mr. Bright."
I felt a faint cold creep up my spine. Donovan's voice was familiar haze in my memory; we had severed contact but the feel of him could still ignite doubt.
Chandler took the phone, said, "Hello?"
A woman's voice that I did not know started to speak fast, excited. "Chandler? You remember the charity gala last month? I needed a favor—"
"Who is this?" Yale's voice tightened.
"It's Janessa Ayers," the woman said, unaware of the room she had interrupted. "Hi, Chandler. Donovan—Donovan wanted me to say—"
"Donovan who?" Martha asked, though she already knew.
"Donovan Zheng," the caller said, her tone like sun on glass. "We had a lot of… fun last fall. He gave me something very special. I just wanted to say thanks."
The hush in the room thickened.
Chandler's face went quiet, then closed. "Janessa, this isn't the time—"
"Donovan told me to call," Janessa said. "He said you'd want to know." She laughed, and it came out cruel in that private room.
Martha's fork clattered to her plate. "Excuse me?" she said.
I stood up before I thought about it. "What does he mean, 'donovan gave you something'?" My voice was small but rang.
Yale looked at Chandler. "Who is Donovan Zheng to you, Chandler?"
"He's someone from an old company of mine," Chandler said slowly. "Why—"
Janessa's laugh came through the phone again. "I wanted to show you," she said. "Look." There was the unmistakable rustle of fabric, the card of a luxury store. "He gave me a Cartier piece. He said he had 'leftovers' from other women, and thought I'd like to try something different."
At that point the room was a small stadium. The private wall no longer felt private. People at the next table leaned in with forks paused, eyes wide. The server hovered, confused. Yale's face went the color of stone.
"Where is Donovan now?" Chandler asked.
"Why?" Janessa's voice put on a coquettish tilt. "Because he's at an office party! I'm here, thinking of him. I thought you'd like to hear."
"Will you come to the table?" Chandler asked, not angry but steady.
"No," Janessa said. "Why would I show up? I was a guest at his party."
Martha's jaw hardened. She stood. "You, Miss Ayers, you say these things and expect everyone to applaud? This is someone's engagement dinner."
Janessa's voice on the other end faltered, then gained a thin edge. "It's the truth. He bought me a real ring and—"
"Donovan," I said aloud. "If you cared for me, why would you do that?"
There was a beat of silence. The phone's line crackled with distant music, the clink of glasses. Then Donovan's voice came on, puffed and surprised.
"Chiyo," he said, "what is this? Is this a joke?"
"Is it a joke to buy one woman a ring and give another a prize?" I said. "Is that how you measure people?"
In the private room, people began to whisper. Someone snapped a photo with a phone. Another guest mouthed, "Scandal," and then laughed, too loud.
"You're making a scene," Donovan said, suddenly on the defensive. "I didn't mean—"
Janessa cut in. "Don't you start. We had a good time. He bragged to me about how he could get anything for anyone. I took what he offered. It's not my fault your girl was gullible."
"You knew?" I asked her.
She laughed again, bright and wrong. "Of course. He told me I was tied to him by his promises."
By now the server had gone to find the restaurant manager. A dozen pairs of eyes were on us. Mallory's face had gone white. Chandler kept his hands on the table like he was trying to keep himself anchored.
"Chiyo," Chandler said quietly, "sit down."
"I will," I said, but I stayed standing.
"Get out," Martha snapped, pointing directly at Donovan—she had found him, whether in person or on the phone, and she was not done. "Get out of my daughter's life. If you ever thought she was a spare, then you are not welcome to speak of her."
I heard the click of the phone being slammed down on someone's end—Donovan's voice cut off like a snapped string. For a moment, the sound of our own breathing filled the room.
Janessa's voice came back, smaller, "You can't treat me like that—"
"Everyone, please," Diane said, rising. "We are not going to let this ruin the evening."
People around us were either recording, whispering, or leaning back as if the air had turned sharp. The restaurant manager stepped into the doorway, looking between the tables.
"Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Yes," Martha said, pointing at the empty chair in Donovan's mind. "There is a man who thinks he can string hearts like beads. He sold one ring, gave another. He thought Chiyo was a placeholder. We are done with him."
As soon as she said it like that, laughter rose—both bitter and light—from the other tables. Phones were suddenly held out, the glow of small screens like a field of fireflies. Strangers began to clap, small at first, then louder. Someone shouted, "Good for you!"
Donovan's voice came back in a flurry. "Martha, we're both adults—this is private. Chiyo, stop making a scene."
"Private?" Martha echoed. "You made our private lives your playthings."
Then something changed. Donovan, who had always been cool in a way that hid anything real, finally lost his balance. His voice went thinner, then higher. "This is ridiculous. Janessa, get off the phone. You're embarrassing me."
Janessa's laughter had been replaced by a sudden, sharp silence. "I'm not the one who should be embarrassed," she said. "You are."
Through the doorway I could see a few more heads turn—two colleagues of Donovan's, his manager perhaps—people who had not known the private version of him. They were looking now with curiosity and something that felt like judgment. Donovan's usual allies, people who had once ignored my existence, were suddenly watching their friend unravel.
"How did you expect me to feel, Donovan?" I asked. My voice was steady, and I felt like a stranger to myself, watching the scene from above. "You gave someone else what you would not give me. You called me coy when I wanted something real."
Donovan's breath hitched. "Chiyo, please—"
"Please what?" I asked. "Please stop pretending you didn't choose?"
A guest near the window began to film us and said into his phone, "This is getting good." Others joined. The room filled with murmurs: "He always seemed slick," "Poor girl," "What a jerk." Some people turned their phones to capture Martha's steady face, Chandler's quiet resolve, and my own trembling hands.
At last Donovan's face changed from arrogance to panic. "Stop it," he hissed. "Stop—this is my business."
"Business?" Diane's voice was cold. "You treated a life like a transaction."
There was a shift in Donovan then. He started to deny, then tried to shift blame. "I didn't—Chiyo, you don't understand—Janessa and I—it's complicated."
Janessa, who had been proud and unbothered a moment before, began to falter. She could hear herself on the line, recorded by a dozen strangers. She stuttered, "I—Donovan told me—"
"What did he tell you?" a young man at the next table demanded, half-rising. "That women come in packages?"
A low laugh surfaced and then a few people erupted into applause. It was not the applause Donovan had wanted. It was the sound of judgment, of the audience choosing sides.
Donovan's face turned crimson and then pale. He looked around as if for an exit and found none. Some of his colleagues stood up and moved away, awkward. One of them muttered, "This is bad PR."
Chandler reached for my hand and squeezed. "Let them see," he said softly.
Later, when the room had quieted and some people had left muttering, Donovan tried to come back on the phone. He begged, he blamed, he offered versions of the truth that twisted and turned. Janessa called him cowardly names behind closed doors; he called back with promises of change that sounded like practiced theater.
But none of that mattered. The public had seen the lie. His co-workers had texted the photo to others. By the time we left the restaurant, a dozen messages had come through to Chandler's phone—"We saw," "Tell her she's lucky," "What a snake."
The punishment was not legal. There was no arrest, no scandal headline on the front page the next day. But in that room, with people filming and whispering, Donovan had been turned from a man who could float above consequence into someone who had to taste the texture of shame.
He tried, later, to come to me. "Chiyo," he said the next day, standing at my doorstep with shame written around his mouth. "I can explain."
"Explain what?" I asked. "That you treated me like a placeholder? That you gave one woman your money and another your leftovers?"
"I can change," he said, and he looked, for a second, like a boy who had been found out stealing someone's pencil.
"You never did," I said. "You only played with the idea."
He dropped his gaze. Around us, the city moved on. A neighbor from the building leaned out to look at the drama and then pulled her curtains. Word had already begun to pad around the company Donovan worked for—small talk on elevators became a new kind of gossip.
Janessa's Instagram had comments under a photo the next morning: "Shame on you," "How could you?" She deleted the photo and posted a soft apology that read thin. Donovan's boss sent him a terse message: "We need to talk about conduct." His friends stopped answering his calls.
I thought I would feel triumphant. Instead, I felt like a window had been cleaned. The view beyond was clearer and colder. Chandler wrapped me in his arms that night and said nothing. That was his way of being present. In the silence I heard the faraway echo of the public's applause—people choosing the gentle, steady man over the flashy, careless one.
After that night nothing was the same. Donovan's calls dwindled to one, two, three short messages that asked for an audience, for forgiveness, for another chance. Each one felt like the same flimsy coin he had tried to pass off as a ring. I did not reply.
Chandler and I moved forward, planning a small ceremony that fit us: his parents, my mother, Mallory and a few close friends. We chose a quiet garden and a neat bakery shaped like our small dreams. Chandler was there when I fretted over the dress; he held my hand when my mother cried a clean, happy cry.
"Are you sure you don't want to confront him more?" Mallory asked once, as we walked past a shop window.
"I did," I said. "I did it my way. Let the truth be the loud thing."
On our wedding day, as Chandler slipped a band onto my finger, I thought of the silver ring in the trash, of the way Donovan tried to make me less than I was, of Janessa's laugh that had broken like glass. The sound of that clap from the restaurant felt far away and hollow.
"Chiyo," Chandler whispered, "you make me want to be a better man."
"You already are," I said, and I meant it.
We stood among our people—Diane and Yale smiling like they had always known how this story would end, my mother Martha wiping her cheeks and beaming—and for the first time I felt the small, bright truth of being chosen.
The End
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