Free Falling Into You by Jasinda Wilder

and given a table immediately, despite the crowd of waiting vacationers.  
    It was another nice but slightly awkward dinner, with the coming conversation weighing on us both. I knew I had to send my official acceptance to Syracuse soon, or have our dads start pulling strings to get me into Stanford with Kyle. Time was running out. We’d put this off for too long, to the chagrin of both of our parents, and now the time had come. It was August, and the universities were starting their academic year in September.  
    I opened my mouth to bring it up several times, but Kyle always seemed to head me off, as if he knew what I was about to say. We drove home in a tense silence. Kyle had his hand in the pocket of his Dockers while he drove, and he kept glancing at me, a deep, inscrutable expression on his face. We pulled up to the cabin and sat for a moment, watching fat drops of rain splatter on the windshield, listening to the wind howling outside. The huge pine trees surrounding the cabin were bending and swaying in the winds, which were approaching gale force, it seemed to me. I watched with my heart hammering as one tree in particular seemed to bending almost double in the gusts, and I found myself tensing for the moment when it would snap and fall. With the direction the wind was blowing, if it did break, it would hit the house and the car we sat in.  
    Kyle looked at me, and I noticed beads of sweat on his face, despite the coolness in the car. His hand gripped the steering wheel and smoothed the leather across the top, a gesture he only made when nervous or upset. I waited, knowing he’d speak up when he was ready.
    He glanced at me again, took a deep breath, and withdrew his hand from his pocket. My heart pounded in my chest realization dawned on me. Oh god. Oh god. He was about to propose. No, no. I wasn’t ready for that.
    He opened his hand, and sure enough, there was a black box, Kay Jewelers written in gold thread across the top. I bit my lip and tried not to hyperventilate.
    “Kyle? I—”
    “Nell, I love you.” His hand trembled slightly as he opened the box, revealing a half-carat princess cut diamond ring, simple and beautiful. And terrifying. “I don’t want to spend a moment without you. I don’t care about college or football or anything. All I care about is you. We can figure out the future together.”
    He withdrew the ring and held it out to me between thumb and forefinger. Rain blatted on the windshield, and the wind howled like a banshee, gusting so hard the car rocked on its suspension. Why now? I wondered. Why here ? In a car, in a rainstorm? Not in the restaurant during dinner? Not out at the firepit where we had so many memories? My heart juddered in my chest, and my eyes stung, sight wavering and blurring. My lip hurt and I tasted the tang of blood. I forced myself to release my lip before I bit straight through it.
    “Nell? Will you marry me?” Kyle’s voice broke at the end.
    “Ohmigod, Kyle.” I choked out the words, forced the rest out. “I love you, I do. But…now? I don’t—I don’t know. I can’t…we’re barely eighteen. I love you, and I was going to tell you I’d follow you to Stanford. Dad can get me in last minute…” I shook my head and scrunched my eyes closed against the confused hurt in Kyle’s eyes.
    “Wait…” he shook his head, withdrawing the ring slightly. “Are you saying no?”
    “It’s too soon, Kyle. It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just…” Doubts assailed me.  
    I’d never dated anyone else. It wasn’t that I wanted to, necessarily. But I felt so young, sometimes. I’d never been away from my parents for more than a week. I’d never left home. This was the first time I’d gone somewhere without them. I wanted to experience life. I wanted to grow up a bit. I wasn’t ready to be married.
    But I couldn’t get any of this out of my mouth. All I could do was shake my head as tears fell, mimicking the rain. I pushed the car door