One Hundred Proposals (28 page)

You guys have been brilliant so far with your support and although I don’t always agree with your methods, I would appreciate your take on this.

COMMENTS

Megan Wood says:
She loves you, definitely. You don’t kiss someone like that if you don’t have feelings for them. I don’t care how scared someone is. That kiss meant something to her and she’s denying it because she’s scared you don’t feel the same way.

Victoria Stone says:
I want to fly out there and bang your heads together. You love her, she loves you, just tell her. What’s holding you back?

Harry Forbes says:
I wish it was that simple Victoria. Issues from my childhood have left me fearing rejection as much as someone with acute arachnophobia fears spiders. I’ve tried, believe me I have. Many times over the last two years, I’ve plucked up the courage to give her my heart and every time I’ve been left a sweating quivering wreck. That was the whole point of these proposals, so I could show her how much she meant to me rather than actually telling her. But I know she needs to hear the words, she said as much herself. I will tell her… one day.

Tilly Tennant says:
I’m new to this secret blog but even without reading all the entries, I’d have to agree with the others. She loves you, any fool can see that.

Kirsty MacLennan says:
She loves you. Kiss her again and this time don’t stop until you’re both sweaty and naked.

Laura Lovelock says:
She definitely loves you, what are you waiting for?

*

Proposer’s Blog

Day 31: The Fossilised Proposal. Location: Athabasca Glacier.

A fantastic journey across the Icefields Parkway towards the glacier. We saw moose, elk and a fleeting glimpse of a wolf on the trip through the wilderness. Suzie was like a child as she excitedly pointed out all the sights.

We boarded what can only be described as a 4x4 bus, with huge, thick wheels, to travel across the Glacier.

The beauty of the place was staggering. Where before we have viewed the incredible mountain landscape at a distance, today we were literally driving through it, so close to the mountains we could reach out and touch them.

At the midway point we were allowed to step out of the bus onto the glacier, onto the ice and snow that had been there for thousands of years.

Everyone was busy taking photos and touching the ice and the mountains. I tried to guide Suzie surreptitiously towards where the pre-prepared proposal was. Things have been a bit awkward between us today and after sitting on the bus together almost in silence, I think she was relieved to be able to get away from me, even for a short while. Which didn’t help the proposal. We only had limited time on the ice before we were to re-board the bus and make our way back to our hotel. I wanted her to find the proposal herself but short of grabbing her and frog marching her towards it, I was at a bit of a loss about what to do.

Suddenly someone else found it, another one of the tourists. And with the screams and shouts from this couple, everyone came running to see what they had found underneath the ice, including thankfully Suzie. It wasn’t the discreet proposal I had been hoping for, but the crowd effect is always a good one.

As Suzie pushed her way through the people, she saw it too. In a lump of ice and snow, looking like it had been there for hundreds of years, was the proposal written in stones and twigs. I had asked an ice sculptor to create it and then the Ice Explorer crew had placed it onto the glacier the day before and poured water over it to freeze it in place.

The effect was stunning. Suzie’s face, as she looked around for me, was an absolute picture. The crowd realised the proposal was meant for her and as she approached me they all started cheering. I got down on one knee and then there was silence as they waited for her answer. For the first time I honestly thought I was going to get one too.

She bent down and whispered in my ear. ‘Get up and hug me or I’ll never hear the end of it.’

So I did and the crowd roared, thinking she had said yes. Not the romantic ending I was hoping for, but still she was smiling all the way back to the hotel, which was definitely something.

Proposer’s Blog

Day 32: The Chainsaw Sculpture Proposal. Location: Lake Louise.

We had the day to explore Lake Louise so we hired a car and drove round the lake, the small town and into the mountains. The lake is the most gorgeous turquoise colour and it just looks startling against the backdrop of the mountains.

But I wanted Suzie to see something else. Max Cordwain is a chainsaw artist who lives nearby. With the use of chainsaws and other power tools he can quickly and skilfully produce the most magnificent sculptures and works of art.

As we drove up, great wooden horses and bears adorned the driveway to his house, accompanied by tiny intricate fairies and birds. The man clearly had loads of talent.

Unfortunately he was the best looking bloke I had ever seen in my entire life. This man literally had a square jaw, his muscles were huge, dark curly hair that fell over his eyes as he worked, thighs like tree trunks. If I had been gay, I would have been fawning all over him too.

Yes, as he carved my proposal into this deep red wood, Suzie couldn’t take her eyes off him for one second. It didn’t help that halfway through the carving, he took his top off, and stood half naked as he tore manfully through the trunk of the tree, gliding his tools with ease
–
like a knife through butter. To say Suzie was turned on would be a massive understatement. She barely noticed the proposal come to life under his hands, she only had eyes for him.

I’m a big man but as she stared at him with lust filled eyes, I have never felt so inadequate and small before. I don’t think she even noticed I was there. I felt like getting back in the car and driving off and leaving them to it.

Finally he produced the finished piece and handed her the beautiful plaque with the words carved in big chunky letters. She barely gave it a glance.

I was not impressed.

My advice my dear would-be proposers: if you enlist help in your proposals, make sure the people helping you are as ugly as sin first.

I felt bad about that proposal, of course I did. Max had been gorgeous, I admit that. He was the first person other than Harry that I’d imagined doing wicked and dirty things to for over two years. I was surprised to feel such an urge when I met Max. It probably hadn’t helped that since I had kissed Harry, he had started to pull away from me. I could feel him distancing himself from me. We talked and things were still sort of friendly on the surface but there was this… awkwardness between us now that had never been there before. He obviously knew how I felt and was trying to push me away. So I suppose I appreciated Max a bit too much to try to show Harry I wasn’t really interested in him. Harry had been quite annoyed.

What I hadn’t expected was the reaction of the followers on the blog. Since Harry had posted the chainsaw proposal the day before, the followers’ comments had been quite nasty and I had received five rather hurtful emails from followers telling me what a cow I was.

‘Harry is lovely and beautiful, you don’t deserve him you bitch,’
said one.

‘I can’t believe he is going to all this effort to show how much he loves you and you would rather spend your time ogling the woodcutter, what a complete and utter cow,’
said another.

Talk about completely misunderstanding the situation.

‘You’re either blind, gay, stupid or just an attention seeking slut, which is it? Either way I don’t think much of Harry’s taste in women.’

‘So your brother dies, Harry spends months helping you pick up the pieces, he takes you around the world and proposes to you in incredible and beautiful ways and you take a shine to the first person who flashes a bit of flesh. You ungrateful, stuck up tart.’

‘Harry deserves so much better than you, you make me sick. You fuc-’

Harry walked into the hotel room, distracting me from the laptop. I quickly closed the screen so he wouldn’t see the emails. He was obviously cold from being outside as he rubbed his hands together to get warm.

He stopped when he saw me. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, just answering emails and stuff, nothing important.’

He tilted his head. ‘You look upset.’

‘No, I’m fine.’ I was annoyed with how not fine my voice was. They were right, I was a horrible person.

Harry was still not convinced and I cursed that he knew me so well. He moved to take the laptop off me, I held onto it, but he was stronger and he forced it out of my grasp.

He opened it up and started reading. His face turned to thunder.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters. How dare they write those things to you.’

I sighed. ‘It doesn’t help, though, that you write these blog pieces like you’re in love with me and I end up looking like the bad guy because I’m not saying yes to any of these proposals. I know that’s what Silver Linings wants to see, all romance and flowers and birds singing but that’s simply not the case at all. We’re just friends and I think our followers need to know that.’

He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. ‘Just friends?’

‘I don’t mean just friends, you’re so much more than a friend to me…’ I trailed off. Oh what a tangled web we weave. ‘You’ve been incredible after Jack, through all of this, you mean the world to me and I…’

‘I’m going to take care of this, don’t think about it again. Get yourself ready, we need to leave in half an hour.’

With the laptop under his arm, he stormed out.

Our nice relaxing trip on the lake this afternoon wasn’t looking so promising now. I had hoped it would be fun and we could somehow recapture the cosy bond between us. As the door slammed behind him, that prospect was looking less and less likely.

*

Harry’s mood hadn’t improved at all by the time we stood on the shores of Lake Louise an hour later. He wouldn’t tell me what he had said to the people who had emailed me but evidently it wasn’t nice.

We had hired two canoes to take us to the furthest shores, and a half hour’s walk from there was a log cabin we were going to spend the night in. I couldn’t imagine anything more romantic, even though the mood hanging between us at the moment was anything but romantic.

Harry took off, his powerful arms ploughing through the water, whilst I seemed to struggle to go in a straight line. The lake was big but the people who had rented the canoes seemed hopeful we could traverse it in about half an hour. I wasn’t hopeful that we could reach the other side before nightfall and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

Somehow I managed to get into a rhythm, and pointed myself in the right direction. But after a few short minutes my shoulders and back were screaming with the exertion of using muscles I hadn’t even known existed, let alone used before. I stopped for a breather. When Harry had mentioned it to me the day before, I’d imagined it would be fun. I was sweating, aching, out of breath and I’d barely crossed a third of the lake.

Harry seemed to realise I was struggling and within a few minutes he was back by my side.

‘You ok?’ He glided effortlessly through the water towards me.

‘It’s a lot harder than it looks.’

‘Nah, it’s easy. Come on, we’re nearly there.’

We were not nearly there, but the thought of sitting by the fire in that little log cabin kept me going.

Harry turned and headed towards the far shore again, and soon there was a huge gap between us. As hard and as fast as I was trying, I didn’t seem to be moving at all.

Harry came back for me again. ‘Let me tow you.’ He offered a rope.

‘No, I’m fine, you go on ahead. I’ll be there soon.’

He sighed. ‘Just come a little closer.’ He was clearly still angry, either at me or our followers but I knew when not to argue with him and this was one of those times.

I reluctantly admitted defeat and tried to steer myself towards him, but I missed his hands by a good metre. He leaned out to try to grab the end of the canoe, his canoe toppled with his weight and dumped him into the lake.

‘No, Harry, oh my God, are you ok?’

‘Shit!’ he muttered. ‘Crap, that’s freezing.’

His canoe had turned upside down and I paddled towards it to try to help turn it over.

‘Don’t,’ Harry said through gritted teeth. ‘You’ll only bloody well fall in as well.’

I watched helplessly as he flipped the boat back over and hauled himself out of the icy water. ‘Crap, that’s so frigging cold.’

‘Let’s go back, we could be back in our hotel sooner than we can get to the cabin, and the hotel has hot showers.’

‘No, it’s fine.’

It clearly was not fine, he was shaking so much.

With fumbling fingers he tied the rope to the front of my boat. ‘Harry, please leave it, just get yourself to the cabin, I’ll catch you up.’

He ignored me and soon he was powering through the water, dragging my canoe in his wake.

As we approached the shore I could see a fire blazing away, a picnic blanket, hamper and champagne bucket had been left for us. Harry was nothing if not prepared.

He quickly moored his canoe on the small sandy beach and pulled mine in alongside his. He got out and helped me out too. He was freezing – bunched up and trying to protect himself from the cold as he staggered a few feet to the fire and dropped to his knees by the flames.

‘Let’s leave the picnic,’ I said. ‘Let’s just go straight to the cabin and get changed. We can come back and do this later.’ All our stuff was either already at the cabin or on its way. But even if it wasn’t there, we would be inside, out of the cold, and we could light a fire.