Kiki Fawn
My boyfriend proposed to me when we graduated from high school, but I made a deal with him instead of giving him an immediate answer.
"We'll get married when we've collected 500 train tickets."
In the first year, Marcus could hardly wait to come see me every day. Before long, our collection had grown to 280 tickets.
He even laughed and said that he'd be able to take me home as his wife before graduation at the rate he was going.
In the second year, we met each other halfway. Soon, the number of tickets climbed to 400.
But in our third year, Marcus told me that his advisor had taken on a new project and that a junior who had just joined the research team needed him to show her the ropes.
He became swamped, so I ended up visiting him most of the time. Meanwhile, he only came to see me occasionally. By the end of the year, we had barely managed to collect 460 tickets.
In our fourth year, he said he was too busy with internship interviews, leaving me no choice but to pull several all-nighters to finish my assignments so that I could spend a weekend going to see him.
We finally collected 499 train tickets just before graduation.
I secretly put on a white wedding dress, slipped on the ring he'd given me when he proposed, and boarded a train.
I wanted to surprise Marcus. I wanted to tell him that we had finally reached 500 tickets. I wanted to tell him that I was ready to marry him.
But when I arrived at the foot of his dormitory building, my heart full of anticipation…
I saw Marcus holding another girl tightly, surrounded by a large heart of flickering candles.
He lowered his head and kissed her on the lips amid the cheers and teasing from the crowd.