Kneeling in the Kitchen
For three months Zhao carried the ring in the inner pocket of his work bag, waiting for the perfect moment. He had a plan: a rooftop at sunset, a photographer hidden behind a plant, a speech he had rewritten eleven times.
He never used any of it. The rooftop restaurant lost his booking. The photographer double-booked the date. And on the evening everything fell apart, it was Maya who said, half-joking over takeout menus, 'Let's just cook. I cannot look at another menu.'
So they cooked. Or tried to. Zhao burned the garlic, twice, and set off the smoke alarm, and Maya laughed so hard she had to sit on the floor. The kitchen smelled like a small fire and garlic and, faintly, like home.
It was while he was scraping the pan, apron on, hair standing up from the steam, that he realised he had been waiting for the wrong thing. Not a perfect place. Not a perfect speech. Just a moment honest enough to hold.
He turned around, took the ring out of the bag on the counter, and knelt on the kitchen tiles between the rubbish bin and the fridge. 'I had a whole speech,' he said. 'I forgot it. Marry me anyway?'
Maya looked at the burnt garlic, at his ridiculous apron, and said yes before he finished the sentence. They still have the pan. It has never quite come clean, and neither of them has ever tried very hard to make it.
