How The Jeffersons Fell In Love, Part Three

Read part one and part two here. 

So my boyfriend shoved the receipt for my engagement ring in my face after I accused him of not caring enough about the future of our relationship. Speechless, I merely handed it back to him and said nothing for the rest of the evening.

After that, I was just kind of waiting. Is he going to propose today? I’d think to myself after he invited me over to his apartment. But, nope.  No proposal. A whole month went by and I’m thinking, “Is this dude ever going to propose? Did he even really buy the ring?” Then I realized our anniversary was in April, so maybe he was waiting until then.

We had a very good Valentine’s Day (a little too good) that year and then a couple weeks later I was late. Like, late, late. So I went to pick up a pregnancy test.

I was in complete denial about being pregnant. Could not believe this could happen to me, even though we had slept together and had the condom break. I took the pregnancy test and freaked all the way out when it came up positive.

When I shoved the test in my boyfriend’s face (I’m pretty sure I flicked pee on him), I don’t think he even blinked. He was just…calm. “Don’t freak out. You’ll go to the health center and get a real pregnancy test and then we’ll figure out what to do.”

Oh, is that all? I wanted to say. But I didn’t. We went to the center and they confirmed what I already knew.

I looked at my boyfriend and just felt completed crushed. This was not how our story was supposed to go. Once a baby comes, everything changes. Everything.

After we got back from the health center, I thought for sure, okay, the proposal must be coming soon. But it didn’t. I gave him a couple days and then tried to bring it up casually. “So…um…about that ring….”

“What about it?” he said.

Well, damn. This is it, I thought to myself. Here’s the classic switch-a-roo men pull after they find out they’re going to be daddies and they find they’re not up for the job.

So I gave him some space. Stopped calling and coming over to his apartment. Rubbed my nonexistent bump and said to myself, “Well, looks like it’s me and you, kid. Let’s see what’s next.”

But the funny thing was, he never said he wanted to break up and he never acted any different toward me other than the fact that the ring wasn’t making an appearance. And since I knew he had it, I was racking my brain trying to figure out what the hold up was.

A couple days later, he asked me to come over after he got off work. He bought me some Chipotle. He led me into his apartment and asked me to come in the back room. Cautiously, I followed him. He gave me a piece of paper and smiled big. “Okay, so this is your first clue,” he said.

“What?”

“Just go along with it,” he said. “Read the clue and find the next one.”

So I did. The clue led to me to the bathtub, where there was a balloon with a piece of paper inside. I popped it and read the next clue. And on and on. Thinking back on it, it was kind of humorous because the apartment was probably no more than 300 square feet so each clue was only 5 feet away from the others.

After about 10 balloons filled with clues, I got to the last one. “Go in the living room and find the man you want to spend the rest of your life with,” it said.

I turned around and there was my boyfriend, on one knee, with the ring.

Wow.

“I love you and you know I care about you,” he said. “You mean everything to me and I would like for you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”

I bent down to hug him. “Yes, of course.”

And that’s how we got engaged.

After that, things were back to normal and I was focused on how in the world I was going to be a mommy, a college student and a wife-to-be…..