Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 45 of 78

Kylie set the phone face-down on the piano. The label could wait one more hour. The ring sat on her finger, warm and heavy, and she realized she didn't know its full story. She'd bought it. Arianna had turned it into a question. But neither of them had said out loud what the yes meant. "Before we tell them anything," Kylie said, "I need to hear it from you. Not the proposal. The reason." Arianna's hand went still on the keys. "You already know the reason." "I know you asked me. I don't know what saying yes cost you." Kylie turned on the bench to face her. "Everyone out there thinks a fan got lucky. I need the true version. So I can carry it when they don't believe us." Arianna was quiet a long moment. Then she reached for the empty ring box on the music stand and held it in both hands. "For a year I wrote letters and got nothing back," she said. "I told myself I was fine loving someone who didn't know I existed. That was safer. Loving you from far away meant you could never leave." She looked down at the red stone on Kylie's finger. "Saying yes meant giving that up. It meant you could actually break my heart now. I chose that anyway." Kylie's throat tightened. She had given the necklace, the key, the room with the lock. She had said the words in the limousine. But she had never heard this part. "I put it on your finger instead of mine on purpose," Arianna went on. "I didn't want to be picked. I wanted to be the one picking. That's what the yes meant. I stopped being someone who waits." Kylie took the box from her hands and closed it. "Then that's the story. Not the ring. The waiting you gave up." "You won't tell them that," Arianna said. "It's too much for a statement." "I'm not putting it in a statement." Kylie picked up her phone and turned it back over. "I'm telling my mother we're not confirming anything yet. The engagement is ours until we decide otherwise. The label gets the song on the fifteenth. They don't get this." Arianna stared at her. "You'd hold it back? Even trending?" "You held your feelings for a year and let me set the pace," Kylie said. "I can hold this a few days and let you set ours." She typed to her mother: No engagement statement. We'll decide the timing together. Song stays on the fifteenth. Then she set the phone down again. Arianna slid closer on the bench. She pressed one note, then another, and Kylie found the harmony above it without thinking. For the first time the ring on her finger had a story behind it, and it belonged to no one but them. The phone buzzed once. Her mother, again. This time Kylie let it ring.