"Aaron," Penelope mumbled from next to me in bed.

"Yeah," I respond, my eyes still closed, still living on cloud nine after being back together with her.

"I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining or upset or anything, so don't misinterpret this, but what just happened?" My eyes open and find hers staring at me with concern and a lot of fear. "A few hours ago, I met your girlfriend. I confessed all of my feelings for you and then your girlfriend came through the door. And she's quite possibly the nicest person I've ever met and somehow, despite that, you're here."

"Well, after you left, Jill and I went out for dinner and we were talking – well, she was talking and I was pretending to listen. Because I couldn't stop thinking about you and all of the things you had told me. I spent years working on moving past you. Trying my hardest to be with another woman and not spend the entire time we were together comparing her to you. Jill was actually the first woman that I was able to do that with. I never once compared her to you. I was doing really well at not even thinking about you every day. And then you waltz back into my life and tell me that you still have feelings for me after all this time, and well, it just made everything change."

"So, we're at dinner and you're all I can think about, and I thought I was being very subtle about it, but of course I wasn't. And Jill asks me what's going on and wants to know everything about you and I told her. And then she read the letter. And she sent me here."

"She sent you here? Wait! The letter?"

"Yeah. She read it and said that we were meant to be together and she wasn't going to get in the way of that."

"Really? That woman is an angel."

"She really is. We'll have to make sure to invite her to the wedding."

"Wedding?" Penelope asks, smiling at me, now looking hopeful and lovingly back at me.

"Our wedding, of course."

"When are we getting married?"

"As soon as you say yes."

"So, like, no waiting period at all?" she smiles up at me, looking mischievous. "What if I want to throw a big wedding and invite everyone we know?"

"Okay, fine. We can wait a little bit. But don't make me wait forever. I've been waiting long enough already."

"I know you have," she reaches up and places her hand against my cheek, pulling me over to her for a sweet kiss. "I'm sorry, Aaron."

"You don't have to keep apologizing."

"But I do. I can't believe all that I put you through. All that pain that was so useless in the end. I left you and I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for that."

"Pen," I say, pulling her face up so that she is looking directly at me, "I've forgiven you. I forgave you long ago." She looks confused by my words, so I continue. "When you left me, I was miserable and I couldn't understand why it had happened. But pretty soon afterwards, I got it. It all made sense. I understood why you needed to leave me. You needed to be yourself and I was holding you back from that. I was keeping you from figuring out who you were. I wanted everything from you and you were not ready for that kind of commitment. You were so young. I was so young. Neither of us were ready for what I thought we were, and you were the only one who saw that. We needed to fall apart. How else would we have been able to come back together?"

"Oh, Aaron," Pen responds before pulling me into a much longer kiss than before.

After a few moments, she pulls away suddenly, as though she has just remembered something. "Wait! You said something about the letter! You read it?!"

"Of course I read it. You leave me a letter as your last words to me. How could I not read it?"

"I guess I just thought that I didn't deserve for you to read it. After everything I did-"

"Stop that! Please, Pen. For me, try to forgive yourself."

"Okay, but I still assumed at the time that you would never read it. That you would look at it and see that it was from me and tear it up or burn it or something."

"I would never. It came from you. I carry it with me always."

"Always?"

To answer her question, I stand up from the bed and walk over to my long-abandoned pants, grabbing my wallet before returning to the bed. I open it and pull out the envelope before handing it over to her. Pen opens the envelope, revealing the letter that is clearly worn from time and frequent readings. A moment later, she looks back up at me with tears in her eyes. "I love you so much, Aaron."

"I love you too, Penelope. I'm so glad you came back to me. That's not the only thing I kept of yours."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let me show you." I stand up again and walk out to Pen's living room to find my jacket. I soon return to Pen in bed and hand her the small box.

"What is this, Aaron?" Pen responds, sitting up in bed, unable to take her eyes off of the box, but also unable to open the box.

"It's yours. And I think you know what it is. Open it."

Pen finally opens the box and tears are slowly streaming down her face when she looks over, only to find that I've moved and am now kneeling by her side of the bed.

"Pen, I bought that ring a week before we had that fight. I was going to wait for a little bit and ask you, but – well, it never happened. But I held onto it because a part of me knew that eventually we'd figure this out. That eventually we'd find our way back to each other."

"Oh, Aaron. I'm so glad you were right!"

"Is that a yes?" I ask, but all Pen is able to do is smile and nod in response as her tears fall.