YA1 || ❝To finding love in your arms everyone morning as I wake up, your eyes meeting my own in a pool of never ending depth. A depth I was willing to test in this life and the next, even if that meant drowning in the swirls of your scent.❞
This boo...
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Some moments in life are meant to become memories forever.
This was one such moment.
After six months and three publishing houses, I finally got my break with Penguin (my old firm), who decided to publish my book as a sign of goodwill. It was certainly odd to be associated with my junior who worked as a superficial editor on my book just to give the book an editorial face but it was no hidden fact.
This book was me from the start to end. Not just the story, even the editing.
And today morning, we both sat in front of the laptop, waiting for the initial response on my book. The deal was fairly lucrative, Penguin deciding to publish 20,000 first copies contrary to company policy because they saw potential in my book.
Reborn from the ashes of the past, In The Eyes of You found a voice of its own in the present, the overall plot same but the intricacies newly woven. Set back as a historical fiction in the 1940s, this novel has its drop back into love, war and loyalties torn apart against the backdrop of WW2, a story born out of my sheer interest in history originally that soon found an accomplice in my romantic imagination.
The reviews were to be out the next day, and so I waited as patiently as I could, trying not to let it reflect upon my face although it did just that.
I was terrified of my book failing.
I had put in eight moments of my current life, swimming against the currents of sanity and security to chase something I'd long since given up on. And yet the constant nag remained in my heart.
What if my word wasn't good enough? What if my imagination wasn't ready for the world yet? What if I wasn't ready for the world yet?
The three questions circled my mind in crazed tandem until I decided to sit by my laptop, hoping to receive an intimation from my former boss. He'd promised to send me word the first he heard about the response on the book.
And so at four in the morning and an hour away from dawn, I sat in the hall with my laptop on the table and my eyes frozen on the mailbox, that did have a mail from Penguin received at 3:52am.
"Dear Miss Furnell,
We regret t-"
Was all that I could see on the mail. And it killed my spirits to click the mail. What did they regret? Publishing my book? Going unsold inspite of the heavy publicity? I'd been doing rounds on TV shows, book clubs, book fairs and radio channels, and even left so social media site untouched.
So what did they regret?
What did I regret?
Not seeing you.
Tonight was the first time I was seeing you in the last two months because you couldn't accompany me on any of my tours. It felt like an investment that had gone to town.
You'd barely crossed my thoughts when I felt the prickles of your stubble graze my cheek softly, your lips following soon enough.
You sit beside me, wondering what I look so paralysed by when you look at the screen, finally catching on to what had my attention.
But you don't give it a longer look. Instead, you turn me around so that I'm looking at you, the first rays of dawn embracing the sky, the glimmers of light heightening the brunette of your hair, your eyes glued to mine.
But you were no longer on the couch.
Instead, you were now on your knee with a small smile on your and a ring in your hand.
"Zach, what are you-"
"Elsa, today is an important day in both of our lives. But I want you to know that no matter what you read in that mail, there's something that's still positive about today. You."
"I don't-"
"Elsa, I've loved you since the day I'd first met you in Paris, but I was too afraid to believe so. But I love you. I love you so much! Your heart knows nothing but love, your soul nothing but compassion and your mind nothing but knowledge, all of which I've been incredibly blessed to have been on the receiving end of. What we've shared between us in these seven years is much more than I can describe in words."
"Zach, are you proposing to me because you're trying to ease the heartbreak of the mail?"
"No Elsa, I'm proposing because I want to marry you and wake up to your sleeping face every single morning for the rest of my life. I planned to propose to you tonight at dinner, but when I woke up this morning to find my bed empty for the sixty-seventh day in the row, I realized that my life is incomplete without you. I am incomplete without you. And I thought it mattered when I proposed or how I did it. But it doesn't. Because no matter what, I know that nobody makes me happier than you do, and if you give me the chance, I'd like to try giving you the same happiness for the rest of your life."
"Sweetheart," was all I could say as I choked back a sob, your glistening blues stealing me of all speech. And as the first rays of sunlight finally broke upon the two of us, your lips cracked into a warm smile, mouthing the words that brought along a new day in my life.
