My Denver Surprise

 

I was dropping a bombshell on my brother and sister-in-law the first night I was here visiting them in Denver.

Or… so I thought.

“Bryan and I are talking about getting married,” I said, my eyes locked on anything but my brother and sister-in-law in the Cheesecake Factory on that Saturday night.

If you know me, you know this is an extraordinary statement. I’ve dated my fair share of fellows, and most of the time it ended with me fleeing in panic when things started to get serious.

So, the fact that Bryan and I had talked about getting married, AND the fact that I could verbalize that to another human being (in this case TWO human beings) is probably all you need to know about my feelings for Bryan.

My bro and sister-in-law were excited by this announcement, to say the least.

Five days later, after working a long week with my brother (I’m here to help him out on some projects at his work), we had Friday off, and my sister-in-law was off too. We were going to do some sightseeing.

Or… so I thought.

One of the cool places Travis had mentioned was Sloan’s Lake. Our plan was to go to lunch and then head out for some more tourist-type stuff.

Travis told me to dress nice; the place we were going to lunch was kinda fancy.

While we were driving, Sloan’s Lake appeared on the left.

“This is the lake I was talking about Mandy,” he said.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” I said.

And it was. The lake was beautiful; frozen over, with a view of downtown Denver to one side.

So beautiful, in fact, that Travis got impulsive.

Or… so I thought.

“You know what? Why don’t we just get out right now? Do you have your camera? We can take some photos. It’s a perfect day.”

“Yeah sure, that sounds good,” I said.

And it was a perfect day. Well, for Denver anyway. Perfect for this girl is 70 degrees by the beach. But this is Denver in February. So somewhere in the 40s with clear skies and sunshine is perfect. The sun felt warm when we got out of the car and walked around, stepping on chunks of melted ice and snow.

We came to a beautiful bridge. Travis took my camera and told me to stand a certain way. Emily made me turn my back to one entrance of the bridge, and then my brother started snapping photos of the two of us.

Or… so I thought.

Unbeknownst to me, he had the camera on the video function to record what happened next.

While Travis was “taking pictures” I saw a person coming over the bridge out of the corner of my eye. Emily stepped away from me and when I turned to see who it was, I realized that person looked pretty familiar.

It was Bryan. My Bryan. My Bryan who had talked to me on the phone the night before from Los Angeles.

Or... so I thought.

I — being a graceful and soft-spoken lady at all times — shouted something like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” about three octaves higher than I thought possible. You know, in a good, completely stunned sort of way.

I barely got those words out of my mouth, and he was down on one knee. On one knee with a white box. On one knee with a white box that contained something rather shiny.

“I love you very much,” he said.

And um, I honestly don’t remember the rest because I think I was rather close to going into shock. But you know, those are the only words I need to remember.

I assume he said something like, “Will you marry me?” because of the whole ring-and-on-one-knee situation, and also because at some point I remember saying something eloquent like, “Yes. Yes. My answer is yes.”

But mostly, I was stunned that it was all happening.

I think I was stunned because I really wasn’t sure it would ever happen for me. In my mind, the chances that anyone would come around that would make my life so much better, or fill it with so much laughter and happiness seemed slim to none.

Or… so I thought.

 

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