After 2.5 years together, there was one thing I was sure about—I was not going to be the one to propose. Not that year, not the next year, not in 5 years no matter how ready I was to take that step. Chelsey keeps the score, romantically speaking, and fairness is key—I blame her upbringing as an only child. She has a history of loving yet, lamenting my romantic gestures because I, “did the romantic thing last time.” Or there was that one Christmas she got sassy because she thought that I, “won Christmas.”
I’m more of an equity kind of gal—but I knew I wanted her to propose because I wanted this point to go to Pas. To be fair, we don’t actually keep points or score—that doesn’t sound like the recipe for a great relationship. Rather, we are both two creative queers who’s number one love language is a tie between ‘making and giving magical paper collage crafts’ and ‘knowing exactly what little thing the other will find endlessly meaningful.’ Those are two of the love languages, right…?
When we looked at rings the first time, just to look, I could see her spinning and I knew she wanted to propose the hell outta this thing. And I wanted her to. And then she did.
It was March 10th and I had a rare weekend morning solo. Chelsey was at a photoshoot, or so I’d been told. I had a date to the comic book store with a mutual friend of ours. I tried to back out last minute, offered a raincheck if she was busy. But she’d been looking forward to it, she said, and we were going.
Mile High Comics is a basically a giant warehouse off the highway. It’s a comic geek’s dream, and their extensive collection of Buffy memorabilia is just icing on the top. Courtney and I walked the aisles. I was on an unfocused hunt, riffling through a box of used comics but also chatting casually about work and life goals and other things too serious to discuss over the newest issue of Wonder Woman–
“Hey, I really want to get a photo of us in that before we go!” Courtney gestured to a cardboard display of the cast of Stranger Things positioned at the end of two towering shelves of books towards the back of the store. It was one of those super cheesy displays they have the movie theater where you can put your face through the cut out face of a character and pose for a picture.
“For sure, before we go…” I nodded, miss-noncommittal, partially engrossed in a comic book and partially thrown by Courtney’s surprising urge to have her face superimposed on Eleven’s body.
I kept digging through the “Gs,” kept complaining about something-or-other and Courtney kept at it.
“I think I have just the thing to make this better…” She ventured and motioned for me to follow her, back through the comic book sprawl, past the graphic novels, past the place warehouse shop cat likes to perch, until we found myself again starring at the Stranger Things cut out. “I think this is for you…”
I looked at the place on the shelve where she had gestured, and there, between an action figure of Queen Amidala and a zine I didn’t recognize was a framed photo of my mom. It was a photo of her Chelsey and I kept in our living room, smiling, in a yellow 90s barn jacket, her hair short and brown like it was before chemo the first time. A speech bubble taped to the glass read ‘you didn’t think i’d miss this, did you?’ I was beyond blown away. I think I managed to say, “What is this?”
Courtney gestured to the comic sitting next to the photo. On the cover, I realized, was a little colored pencil rendition of Chelsey Pas and the title read: Is The Perfect Proposal Even PAS-able?
Gotta love my Pas and her love of bad puns.
My glasses clouded up with some sort of body fog I can only describe as expectant heat. Hand shaking, I took the comic from the shelf. I knew what was happening.
You know that opening scene in love actually, where the wedding guests surprise the couple and start standing up with musical instruments? Well that literally happened. First from behind an aisle, our friend Kelsey appeared, strumming a ukulele. And then my best friend from out of town was there, taking polaroids. And Courtney’s partner was there with another camera. And there I was, holding a comic, waiting to be proposed to, thinking, “Goddamn it! I knew I should’t have waited another week to get my hair cut…”
But no Chelsey. So the ukulele kept playing and the photos kept snapping and I was trying to make out the gorgeous hand-made comic drawn just for me. There were so many little curly heads (me) and so many little overalls (her) and all of our cats and coffees and things we loved. Maybe it was all our closest people starring at me or maybe it was the fogged up glasses, or maybe it was the knowledge of what was happening, but I totally lost the ability to read. I’m not great with public displays of emotion so in my mind, this moment stretched for hours, me not able to reading, scanning pages, waiting for Chelsey to appear.
And then she finally, finally appeared. She was wearing the same striped shirt and jean overalls as her comic book persona, holding the most amazing ring box made entirely of legos, with a rose gold band inside engraved with the words “If you’re a fox, I’m a fox…” a mad-lib bastardization of lines from Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Notebook that we sometimes say to each other and have forgotten why.
There was no getting down on one knee, which I was grateful for. She asked me to marry her. I said yes. I gave her the wrong hand to put the ring on. We kissed. Even the comic book store shop-cat cheered. And it was perfect for us.
And it could have stopped there…but it went on to include a surprise engagement party downtown at a coffeeshop full of so many of our closest and dearest loves, a train ride, a pizza, a staycation at a hotel downtown, a trip to whole foods, and a play date at a museum. And when the weekend was over, we were everything we were before, but especially full and grateful and content with the dream of sipping coffees together for all the rest of the mornings that we get…