Falling in Love Again: A Valentine's Day Proposal

He takes my hand again and we walk silently. I don’t know how Carter is feeling about all of this but I’m nervous as all hell. Everything zig zags and shoots like chaotic, annoying lightning bolts. I want to be cool about this, I have street smarts, some strange yelling shouldn’t trouble a usually independent woman like me, but it does and I don’t know why. There’s a voice in the back of my brain just screaming at me.

It’s just been an emotional day; I try to convince myself. There’s nothing real to worry about here.

“Uh oh,” Carter hisses quietly beside me. “I think we’re getting closer.”

“Are you winding me up? Don’t say that. Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure… but let’s go this way. I think that’s the best way.”

I trust him because I’m sure that he knows the way better than me, so I follow behind, pressing close to him as we go. I only stop when he does, but I don’t know why.

“What’s going on?” I whisper. “Has something happened?”

I try to lean passed him, to see what’s halted him, but he stands in my way again.

“What’s going on, Carter?” I insist, the anxiety now a million times worse. It’s actually getting hard to remain standing, the pain in my stomach is so much. “Carter, tell me what’s happening. I need to know, now.”

23

Carter

I need Raelyn to shush, but I don’t want to be rude about it. Not when we’ve just gotten things to a good place. I don’t know why I’m so damn freaked out, but I am. It’s just two guys arguing, but there’s something dangerous about it, and I need to work out what it is before they see us and we get dragged into it.

“We might need to run,” I breathe quietly to Raelyn. “So, be prepared.”

Finally, she managed to lean over me to see what’s going on. Her fingers grip so tightly to my arm as she spots the same thing that I do that she could be causing a bruise. I know she has the same gut instinct as me.

“Should we go now?” she asks me, fear lacing her near silent tone.

“In a moment, let’s just wait for the right moment.” I don’t want to make too much noise; I just need to hold out for a couple of seconds more. “I’ll say when. Just… wait for my signal, okay?”

She nods, putting every scrap of her faith into me, and we just watch. Snippets of curse words burst free, but there’s nothing to give us any indication of what this argument is about. I have seen enough of the world to know that men usually only argue over two things: money and women. That’s probably the case here. They’re fairly young, by the looks of it, but there’s some clear aggravation between them.

“Come on.” Raelyn tugs on my arm, desperation getting the better of her. “I don’t like this.”

She’s right, I know she is. We do need to leave, but there’s something here, fixing me in place. I can sense the danger here, but still something is keeping me in place. “Hold on, wait a moment.”

The arguing becomes increasingly irate. The men start to fight and I wonder if the reason that I’ve stayed is to break this up. I try to separate from Raelyn for a moment so I can run to stop this before it gets out of control, but she grabs my arm and yanks me backwards. She clearly doesn’t want me to go anywhere.

“They’re fighting,” I hiss. “I have to stop them before one of them gets hurt.”

“No, it isn’t our business.” She shakes her head rapidly. “We can’t get involved.”

That attitude actually irritates me. I have the opinion that if the whole world turns their back on one another and no one helps a stranger, then society will all fall apart. Is this going to be a problem with us? I thought that Raelyn and I had overcome all the hurdles, but it seems we have one more…

“I need to help, I can’t just let them beat each other…”

“No, it’s bad. Trust me.” She clutches on to her stomach. “Believe me. I don’t know why, but I just know that you definitely shouldn’t go there. We need to get out of here before something bad happens.”

I stare at her, soaking in the real fear in her eyes. She really does believe this, which puts me in a pickle. She isn’t being a bad person, wanting to avoid a stranger, she’s just scared for me.

“Look!” She points back to the guys and I look too. “See what I mean?”

There’s a glint of metal that flashes so quickly it makes my heart stop beating. Now I really need to intervene no matter what. I don’t know what weapon that is, but it can’t be good for either of them.

Then three life altering things happen all at the same time, almost in slow motion so I can digest them properly.

First, I take a step forward, deciding to stop this no matter what Raelyn thinks. I will just make her understand later why I did what I had to do. She might hate me right now, but it’ll be fine in the end.