Our Eternal Ruin (Auslly)

30. Ruin

For some reason I wasn't scared... it was weird. An eerie peace descended over that room and I couldn't explain it.

~Ally~

"I'm sorry." Austin kissed my forehead.

I turned to face him. "For what?"

"I told you I'd help you with some of the list." He laughed and shook his head. "Ways to live... Damn, I thought you knew my secret right then and there."

I shrugged. "We all suffer deaths in our lives right? We all suffer with darkness... mine was just different than yours."

"But not any less serious." Austin touched my cheek. "At any rate, I'm sorry we didn't finish everything."

I pulled away. "Are you talking about the cranberry sauce? Because we had that at Thanksgiving."

"No." He bit down on his lips. "The other stuff."

"Hmm..." I'd been keeping the list in my pocket since he'd been in the hospital. The paper was crumpled and had clearly seen better days. I carefully unfolded it and showed it to Austin. "The list is done."

A line was drawn through every last thing except for what I knew Austin was talking about. "You have a pen?"

He gave me a confused look, then reached to his tray where he'd been playing tic-tac-toe with Dez and handed me the pen.

Emotion clogged my throat as I carefully drew a line through Fall in love, then drew another line through Get heart broken. Austin inhaled sharply as my pen hovered over the last line. This time I circled it.

Fall in love anyways.

A tear rolled down my cheek and landed on the piece of paper.

Austin pulled my face toward his, cupping my cheeks with his hands. "I love you, Ally."

"I love you too," I choked out. "So much it hurts. It actually hurts."

He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to mine.

"You're going to marry me someday."

"Oh, I am?" I said through my tears.

"Yup." He smiled. "I'm going to get down on one knee and I'm going to ask you to marry me. I'm not a very patient guy, so I'll let you do two years of school before I pop the question, no more than two years."

"What if I don't want two years?"

His eyes opened.

"What if I want now?"

Austin chuckled lightly. "And have your Uncle Jobob hunt me down? I'd rather not..."

"Fine, one year." My eyes narrowed in a silent challenge.

"One year from this day..." Austin whispered.