Ebony sat with her legs crossed as she gazed outside of her apartment window. It was a relatively beautiful day outside for fall, and she could see the many colorful leaves of maples and oaks as far as the sky stretched. The blue of the sky was that light blue that signified that the upper atmosphere was colder than the lower atmosphere, and a formation of Canadian geese moved gracefully past puffy white clouds. A mug of steaming herbal tea sat forgotten on her little end table next to her chair, and she sat lost in thought. Today is the day that I tell Michael how much I want to spend the rest of my life with him. She sighed to herself as she dug inside of her jogging pant's pocket for the small, circular piece of metal. Holding it up in front of her, she watched as the rays of the sun caused the white gold to cast a bright reflection in her face, and while she held the small item up, she read the inscription:

She smiled. Nervous excitement coursed through her veins as she thought about the prospect of getting on her knee and proposing to him. It was, after all, the twenty-first century! Women did all sorts of interesting things now a-days, proposing to men, and women, being one of the most highly done. Mike was off doing what he did best, being the CEO of one of the most prestigious and successful corporate take-over buildings in all of Massachusetts, and he was getting to be one of the most world-renown men in America. What was she? Well, she was working on completing her degree in Biology, but her pet project was to be a famous author of children's literature. Her greatest inspiration was the idea that perhaps one day she would have many children with Mike, and she would be able to read them the stories that she had created.

Looking at her watch, she realized that he would be there in about two hours. No, they didn't live together, but he very frequently dropped by her place on his way home from work, and he would unwind there for a while. She realized, with a smile, that it would give her plenty of time to whip up a nice, romantic dinner. Stretching up out of her chair like a contented cat, she looked once more at the ring, and placed it back in her pocket. Then she went into the bedroom to remove her clothing. When she arrived there, she put the ring back in its black velvet box and placed it into her underwear drawer. Tonight, when they were sitting at the dining room table, she would have it placed conveniently underneath his napkin. She liked to make little animals out of the napkins so he would never suspect that anything was beneath it. She chuckled to herself as she started removing her clothing to get ready for their fateful dinner.

Soft jazz played and the lights were turned low. The atmosphere was perfect, and Ebony was ready. He should be walking through that door any minute now, she thought to herself. The two hours had passed, and the stars had come out to greet the night. A low, yellow moon smiled through her windows and cast an even more romantic light in the room than did the candles she had resting on the dining room table. This is going to be so perfect! With her lengthy, thick hair done up in a very becoming French roll, and her generous curves found in an enticing dinner jacket and matching set of slacks, her ensemble would not be complete without her white silk shirt, or the sterling silver cross her aunt had given to her many years before for her graduation from high school. She knew she looked good, and she only hoped that everything went well.

Another hour passed, and the candles were no longer looking as elegant as they had when she had first lit them, before she heard a rattling at the doorknob and a slight squeak as the door was opened.

"Eb?" came the tentative voice.

Sighing in nervousness, and confusion as to why he was so late, she quickly cleared her throat and said, "I'm in the dining room, Mike."

There was no response to that statement for a while before she heard him softly ask, "Why is it so dark in here?"

Inhaling deeply to calm her nerves, she said in a tone belying how she was feeling, "I thought it would be easier on your eyes. I know you had that one account to finish up today, and you told me a few weeks ago that it was going to be a rough one." She kept glancing at the entrance to the dining room, expecting him to come around the corner, but when several minutes passed, and he didn't come in, she hesitantly got up to see what it was that he was doing.

When she entered the living room, she saw that he was standing by the window looking up at the moon. He had his jacket slung over his shoulder, and she could tell that he had loosened his tie and had undone his shirt. It must have been a really rough day for him. She slowly walked up behind him, but she didn't touch him. She knew that sometimes after a rough day, it was so easy for him to bring his frustrations over to her. He was always deeply sorry for it later, but he was helpless to stop it. That's why she had made it a policy to let him have some quiet time before she touched him or said anything to him. It normally took him about ten minutes to come out of it, so she stood there quietly gazing up at the moon with him.

After about that time had passed, she gently laid her hand on his shoulder and softly said, "Did everything go okay?"

Mike didn't say anything for a good long while as he continued to gaze out the window, but then she saw his shoulders rise and fall as if he were taking a deep breath, or sighing. Then he said in a very intense, but quiet voice, "Things… aren't going well."

Ebony felt her heart constrict at the sound of that. She always empathized with him whenever he was having problems at work. Her heart went out to him then, and she handled the situation like she handled all the other times when he came home from a bad day. She wrapped her arms around his narrow waist, and whispered, "I'm sure whatever it is, you will be able to handle it in due time."

And that's when things went a little weird… no ... that's when things went a LOT weird...

Mike shrugged away from her as if she had burned him, and she nearly stumbled forward at the abruptness of his movement away from her. He turned to look at her, and when she saw his eyes, she hardly recognized him for the man that she loved and wanted to marry. Something was wrong… something was very, very wrong.

"Nothing's perfect in this world, Ebony, and if you really think so then you are more naïve than I ever thought was humanly possible." His words were stinging, and they felt like physical blows to her face as he said each one.

"I… I didn't mean anything…"

"That's just it, you never mean what you say. You don't think about what you say when you say things, and quite frankly, I'm getting sick of it."

Ebony's mouth hung open in shock. What was wrong with him? "Mike, I…"

He put up a quieting hand. "For all the years that I've been with you, you've tried to be this perfect little house wife who has this magical fairy dust that could fix any man's problems. Well, I'm here to tell you, baby, that it just doesn't work!"

She snapped out of her surprised daze to snap back at him, her tone hurting, "How can you say this and mean it, Michael? How can you say this to me after so many months of loving caresses. You've never… never not in one day said anything to me as hurtful as you're saying them to me now. I can't believe you mean these things you're saying. I can't!" She moved towards him to take a hold of his hands, but he moved away from her.

"Don't touch me, please… do not touch me. I …" he paused before he continued, not looking her directly in her eyes. "I have to go." Then he stormed out of her apartment.

"Michael!!!"

What had just happened here? Ebony stood staring at the closed door wondering if he was playing some kind of joke on her. She waited for five minutes, but when he didn't come back, she opened the door and looked outside. He was nowhere in sight, and neither was his car. That's when she carefully closed the door, and wandered back into her living room. She shut off the CD-player, and turned on a light. Then she went into the dining room and blew out the candles. When she started clearing things off of the table, her hand brushed against the napkin that he would have used if he had sat down to enjoy the meal. The fabric floated to the floor to expose the black velvet box, and that's when she sat down and cried.

For many weeks after that, she heard nothing from him, and from past experience, she realized that she had to let him have his space, no matter how much it hurt not to be able to run to him and throw her arms around his waist, begging him to hold her. Then one day, she received a short letter in the mail telling her that he had moved out of the state. It was a short note with no explanation, but he did at least leave his new address and phone number telling her that if she ever needed to contact him for any reason, she had every right to. She immediately jumped towards her phone and dialed his new number.

After the third ring, a tired voice said, "Hello?"

"Michael, it's me…" She suddenly heard a click, and then a dial-tone.

Crushed beyond the hope over ever being able to pick up the shattered pieces, she started to write him emails and send him letters. He would respond to her emails with short, clipped responses asking her how she was doing, and how school was going, but he would never answer all the questions she begged him to answer. His tone was friendly though, and he did include her in on what this new job was like. He was now head of his own company and loving every minute of it. He never responded to her letters at all, however. She never complained though. She felt that in good time, whatever was bothering him would come out, and then they could get things back to normal. The engagement ring still rested in her underwear drawer where she had placed it after he'd stormed out of her apartment that fateful night. Then suddenly, and idea popped into her head. It was brilliant beyond brilliant! She ran into her bedroom and forcefully pulled open her underwear drawer. Not accounting for the force, she accidentally yanked it onto the floor. Her panties and things when flying everywhere, but all she had eyes for was the ring box. Then she rummaged around in her closet for the perfect-sized box that she could put the ring box inside. When she found it, she quickly stuffed the velvet box inside and taped it closed. She then hastily scrawled Mike's address on it, grabbed her wallet and keys, and ran all the way to the nearby post office.

The weeks that passed were the longest and most painful moments in her life, and she never thought that she could ever feel more hurt by his unexplainable behavior, or his lack of response to the package she sent him, but she was wrong. She came home one day after a particularly grueling final examination which she had no idea if she'd passed or failed. Her spirits were low, and her heart yearned for Mike's special touch. She reached into her mailbox and pulled out her mail before keying into her apartment. Closing the door, she began to rifle through the many envelopes in her hand. But only one envelope held her attention as the rest dropped unnoticed to the floor. It was a letter from Mike! As her spirits began soaring, she tore open the envelope and pulled out the one-paged letter. As she read, her spirits went from soaring comets, to crashing asteroids. The letter only contained one line, and it read: