Chapter 20 - Altitude
Two years after the fall.
The glass-and-timber pavilion on Lake Washington was finished.
The dedication ceremony had taken place that afternoon, attended by the mayor, the city council, and hundreds of local residents who marvelled at the soaring timber arches and the wide, sweeping terraces that seemed to float directly over the water.
Now, at ten o’clock at night, the crowds were gone.
The pavilion was quiet, lit only by the warm, amber glow of the recessed architectural lights and the full moon hanging like a polished silver coin over the calm, black mirror of the lake.
I stood on the broad terrace of our home, built on the granite bluff just two hundred yards above the pavilion.
The night air smelled of pine needles, cedar wood, and the cool, clean sweetness of deep water. Inside the house, soft jazz played through the sound system, and the stone fireplace cast dancing golden shadows across the wide-plank oak floors.
A pair of warm hands settled gently onto my hips.
Alden pulled me back against his chest, resting his chin against my hair as we watched the distant lights of a container ship gliding silently toward the Puget Sound locks.
“You’ve been standing out here for twenty minutes,” he whispered, his arms wrapping securely around my waist. “Are your feet cold?”
“Not even a little,” I smiled, leaning back into his solid, familiar warmth. “I was just listening.”
“To what?”
“To the silence,” I said softly. “No notifications. No cameras. No footsteps rushing behind me on a staircase.”
Alden turned me gently in his arms, looking down at my face in the moonlight. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, plain wooden box carved from a scrap of Douglas fir from our home's main beam.
He didn't make a speech for three hundred guests. He didn't check the lighting. He didn't look for an assistant with a directional microphone.
He simply dropped to one knee on the solid, hand-planed oak floor of our terrace, looking up at me with eyes full of fierce, uncomplicated devotion.
He opened the box.
Inside sat a band of hand-forged platinum, inset with a single, brilliant-cut sapphire the exact color of the deep Atlantic sky at thirty thousand feet.
“Fallon Vance,” Alden said, his voice deep, quiet, and vibrating with truth. “You taught me what it means to build something that lasts. You showed me that real love doesn't require an audience, and real strength doesn't come from tearing other people down. Will you marry me?”
A single tear slipped down my cheek—not of pain, not of memory, but of absolute, unshakeable peace.
I reached down, took his hands in mine, and pulled him to his feet.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Alden slipped the platinum ring onto my finger. It fit with the effortless, perfect precision of a structural component designed for eternity.
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against his heart, and kissed me under the vast, unbroken canopy of the northern stars.
May you like
Far below us, the lake water lapped softly against the stone shore. Behind us, our house stood strong, its deep timber roots anchored forever into the living rock.
I looked up into the clear night, feeling the steady, powerful rhythm of my own heart, walking forward on my own two feet, flying high above the storm, and never looking down again.
