Apocalypse Queen: My Space, My Rules Chapter 213: Proposing, Perhaps

While Mariella was still turning that thought over in her head, she noticed Chandler picking something from the farmland.

She walked over, and the moment she saw what was in his hands, her heart caught in her chest. Roses. Red roses.

She had no idea when he'd slipped a rosebush into a corner she'd never looked at twice, quietly coaxing it from a seedling into something that had budded and bloomed entirely without her noticing.

The roses had just opened into full bloom, their petals vivid and lush, still beaded with crystal droplets of water. In the fading light of dusk, they were breathtaking.

"When did you plant these?" Mariella reached out and touched a petal, and the water droplets clung to her fingertips.

"When we sowed the second round of wheat. I planted it along the edge of the field." He'd tucked it right at the boundary of the wheat rows, which was exactly why she'd missed it.

Chandler had come in with a pair of garden shears. He wasn't just taking the roses. He trimmed fresh stems and leaves to go with them and assembled everything into a bouquet.

He found colored wrapping paper and a silk ribbon in the storage space and put it all together with a craftsmanship that was genuinely impressive.

Mariella blinked at him. "You know how to arrange flowers?"

"I went with a buddy once to buy flowers for his girlfriend. I watched the woman at the shop wrap a bouquet one time and picked up the basics from that."

Mariella shook her head slowly. "One time and you just learned it. You're really something."

Chandler finished wrapping the bouquet.

Mariella reached out to take it.

"Not yet." He held her gaze for a long, quiet moment, his voice dropping into something soft and deep. "I'll give it to you at dinner."

Every instinct in Mariella fired at once. She already knew where this was going. "Wait, you're not actually going to..."

"You guessed right," he confirmed. "I'm proposing to you."

Mariella went pale and started shaking her head immediately. "That's too much..."

"We'll get engaged first. When we get married is entirely up to you." Chandler had thought about it for a long time before arriving at that answer.

He wanted every step with her to move at the right pace, without pressure, without anything that might cast a shadow over what they were building.

"You know me well enough to know I don't need ceremonies." Mariella spread her hands.

Chandler looked at her steadily. "I need them. Mariella, I want us to keep moving forward together."

"What if one day we look at each other and the feeling just isn't there anymore?" She didn't have a great deal of confidence in marriage, or even in the staying power of love itself.

People said love was fragile as glass and fleeting as clouds, and trying to hold it in place with a legal contract struck her as hopelessly naive.

"If you ever grow tired of me, or fall for someone new, I won't make it miserable for you. I'd let you go." Chandler turned his face away with a quiet, wounded pride.

Mariella still shook her head. "I don't think marriage guarantees anything. My mom had a husband and he destroyed her."

"I'm not your father," Chandler said quietly, "and you're not your mother."

She was still hesitating. He held the bouquet out to her.

Mariella took it without thinking, and in the same motion he pulled her into his arms.

"Mariella," he murmured against her ear, pressing a light kiss to the curve of it, then to the soft strands of hair at her temple, then to the delicate lashes at the corner of her eye. "The truth is, I fell for you a long time ago."

Mariella tilted her head and blinked up at him. "Oh, so you had your eye on me from the very beginning!"

Chandler went quiet.

"Come on, be honest!" She pressed him without mercy. "When exactly did you start scheming?"

He couldn't decide whether to laugh or groan.

She'd completely dismantled the atmosphere.

Determined not to let her derail him entirely, he held his composure and answered with full sincerity. "It wasn't scheming, and it wasn't a passing impulse! Mariella, I've been drawn to you for a long time."

He couldn't pinpoint exactly when it had shifted, but his feelings had moved steadily toward her, quietly and without announcement.

Even after they'd made things official, he still felt unsteady, always wanting something deeper and more certain between them.

"Even if this world never recovers, even if the end never comes, I want us to keep walking alongside each other and holding each other up until there's nothing left." He spoke directly into her ear, low and earnest.

For one unguarded moment, Mariella felt it move through her. Then she retreated back into herself. "I can't promise something like that. A lifetime is such a long time. What if one day the feeling just... disappears?"

Her past life had ended in devastation, and watching her mother spend her entire life being manipulated and broken by a worthless man had stripped away every last shred of her faith in forever.

"Chandler, if the day ever comes when I don't want you anymore, or I want someone else instead, would we end up hating each other?"

Chandler held his breath. The silence stretched out for a long time.

Mariella gently pushed back from him and took a step away, her smile carrying a faint, rueful edge. "Think about it some more..."

"Do you want me right now?" Chandler asked her.

Mariella considered it honestly before answering. "Right now? Yes."

"Then right now is enough." His eyes held hers with quiet intensity, and his voice came out low and certain. "I'll spend every day making sure you still want me tomorrow."