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Ryder had a plan. Well, okay, plan was too strong of a word. Ryder had an idea. Specifically, he had an idea that he should have a plan, and that it had to be a good plan. Basically, Ryder had nothing in terms of a plan. He just had a ring. It was definitely a good ring, though.
It was his grandmother’s. His father had given it to him the last time he was home for a visit, when Ryder had told his dad that he was going to propose.
No one was surprised, exactly. He and Unique had been living together for four years and dating for six. It was certainly long enough that, even though they were young, people were starting to drop hints. Ryder didn’t really have any question in his mind about the fact that they were going to get married. They’d had that conversation a couple of years ago and had pretty much gone ahead from that point planning their lives together.
Ryder wasn’t nervous about whether or not Unique would say yes when he finally asked her. He was really just worried about how to ask her. If you’re going to propose to Unique Adams, you pretty much have to do something big.
He wasn’t too bad at the whole romance thing, actually. He and Unique fit together pretty well. They liked to go out on dates, go dancing, and surprise each other. It was kind of their thing. Whenever Ryder met new people at school, they always assumed that the two of them had gotten together pretty recently because they were still making an effort.
All of that meant that Ryder should be able to come up with the exact right big proposal plan. He’d been thinking about singing, but he kept rejecting every song idea he came up with. He’d even asked Marley, and she hadn’t been able to think of anything that felt right.
That left Ryder here: sitting at Unique’s graduation, with her parents on one side and his on the other, without any plan at all. Ryder had actually graduated from Robert Morris the weekend before, and both of their parents had been nice enough to make the four hour drive from Lima for both weekends.
Watching Unique graduate was a very different experience than sitting through his own graduation had been. At his graduation, he’d been alternating between hoping he wouldn’t trip and making jokes with his friends. They were a great group, and Ryder knew he was going to miss them, but he didn’t think he’d be lonely in the way he would have been if he didn’t have Unique.
It was his girlfriend’s graduation that really got Ryder thinking about the future, though. Unique was graduating top of her class in music from the University of Chicago, and he was incredibly proud of her. She’d worked like crazy the last four years, they both had, and this was the moment she had been working towards. But that also meant that now she was going to have to find another goal. They weren’t completely without direction, but the plan was “go to LA and make it work.” Ryder had a couple of interviews for social work jobs out in LA, but beyond that they really didn’t know. It sort of felt like they were dropping off a cliff and their only game plan for how to survive was to hold each other’s hands while they fell.
When Unique’s row was told to stand and get in line to walk across the stage, Ryder saw her immediately start searching for them in the crowd. It only took her a few minutes to find them, and when she did, she locked eyes with Ryder and gave him a little wave. Ryder couldn’t help but grin and wave back. He was mostly trying to decide exactly how she managed to look so pretty in a graduation gown. Those things were terrible; Beyoncé probably didn’t look good in them, but Unique did.
“You look like a love-struck teenager,” Ryder’s dad whispered into his ear. “You’re making googly eyes at her.”
Ryder laughed. It was probably true; he usually was. “Did you think I was going to grow out of being a love-struck teenager?” he asked his father.
“Maybe not ever,” Ryder’s dad replied, wrapping his arm around his son’s shoulders. Ryder had a feeling his dad was right: he probably wasn’t ever going to stop.
Unique walked across the stage with the utmost confidence, and the five of them made a complete spectacle of themselves cheering, which made Unique laugh as she was getting off the podium. They all kind of zoned out through the rest of the names and discussed dinner instead.
After the ceremony was over, Ryder and the parents had the daunting task of finding Unique on the quad. Luckily, Unique had been smart enough to give them a specific bench to stand by, so all they had to do was not move.
Ryder saw her first, of course, and started dodging through people to get to her as soon as he could. It wasn’t as if it had been all that long since he’d seen her, but still he was anxious to get to her. After spending the last three hours sitting in between their parents and thinking about their future and all that it would entail, Ryder just wanted to hold on to her and never let go.
Unique seemed to be thinking something similar, because she practically threw herself into his arms. Thankfully, she wasn’t wearing her hat, or else he’d probably have lost an eye. “Oh my god, Ryder!” she said into his ear. “We’re done!”
“Yes we are,” he said, squeezing her tighter.
“What on earth are we going to do now?” she said. And of course Ryder knew exactly what she meant, but he also had an answer. He didn’t have a big speech, or fireworks, or a musical number, but he knew that right now was his moment. He had to answer her question.
Ryder pulled back out of Unique’s arms, so that he could look at her as he spoke. “I have no idea. I don’t know what we’re doing or why we’re crazy enough to do it. But I know the only person I’d ever want to do this with is you.”
He took another step back from her and dropped down on one knee, reaching for the ring in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Unique gasped when she realized what she was doing, and, belatedly, Ryder realized that a hush had fallen in the crowd directly around them, and everyone was watching him. He hadn’t exactly meant for the proposal to be quite so public, but he could hardly change his mind now.
“Unique Adams, you are the only thing in my life that I have ever been sure of, and there’s nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life trying my best to make you happy.” Unique pressed both hands to her heart as he spoke, which he took as a good sign. “Will you marry me?” he said finally, opening the ring box in front of him.
Unique beamed at him, although there were tears running down her face. “Yes, I will absolutely marry you,” she said, and then she pulled Ryder to his feet so she could kiss him.
Dimly, he registered applause going on around him, but it was sort of hard for him to concentrate on anything but the fact that Unique had agreed to marry him.
After a minute, Ryder felt a tap on his shoulder and pulled back sheepishly to find all four of their parents standing behind him. “You couldn’t have warned us?” Ryder’s father said, with a wink.
“Nope,” Ryder said, and then realized he was still holding the ring box, so he turned back to Unique and slipped the ring onto her left hand. She stared down at it for a minute, and then looked back at him, still grinning. Ryder’s mother broke the moment by pulling Unique into a hug.
After that, it was a flurry of congratulations, both to Unique for graduating and to both of them on their engagement. Most of Unique’s friends had seen, and they were there as soon as they felt like the parents had had enough time, exclaiming over Unique’s ring and asking her if she’d had any idea. Ryder had to laugh at that; if she had, she’d have known more than Ryder.
Finally, after they talked to pretty much everyone and had a few post graduation snacks, they started walking back to their train stop.
Ryder held Unique’s hand and hung back a bit so that he could talk to her. They hadn’t really had even a minute since Ryder had proposed. “How are you doing?” he asked, once the parents were walking safely ahead of them.
Unique squeezed his hand and smiled. He didn’t think she’d really stopped smiling all afternoon. “Amazing,” she said. “Ryder, I … thank you.”
“For what?” he asked. He didn’t think you normally thanked someone for proposing to you.
Unique thought for a moment and then looked back up at him. “For being you. For the last six years and, according to this,” she said, holding her left hand up in front of them, “for the rest of my life.”
Ryder tugged her a little closer in response and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Well, in that case, thank you for the rest of mine.”
They walked quietly for a moment before Ryder said, “You don’t mind, do you? That it wasn’t a huge spectacle? I kept trying to plan something elaborate, and nothing was right. And then … well, then it was.”
“You did sort of propose in front of several thousand people,” she said with a laugh. “And no, I don’t mind. The wedding can be a meticulously planned spectacle. Today was perfect.”
In response, Ryder pulled her over to the side of the walkway and tilted her chin up so he could kiss her softly. He was sure their parents were already at the station waiting, but he was newly engaged. They could wait. The kiss didn’t last very long, they were in public after all, but afterwards Ryder spent a minute just looking at her.
Ryder was trying to figure out when exactly he’d gotten everything so right. How had he been smart enough to fall for Unique, special enough to have her love him too, and lucky enough to have come this far with no end in sight? He had no idea, but he was so unbelievably grateful that he had.