“Evalynne, is this true?” he asked, his voice tight and quiet. This is how I knew how angry he was.

I glanced at Ash, who was sitting back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, staring off into space, huffing and puffing in fury. “Yes.” I uttered in shame.

Dad didn’t respond. He just stood up from the table and walked away. “Evalynne!” Mom cried. “How could you lie to us like that? I trusted you! Your father trusted you! You’re in huge trouble for this!”

“What are you going to do?” I challenged, knowing I should probably have just backed down and took whatever punishment she gave to me. But I was too old for this. “Ground me? I’m eighteen, Mom. You can’t just send me to my room. I’m a legal adult. I can do whatever I want.”

“Well when this happened, you were only seventeen. And that’s not a legal adult. So at that time, you weren’t allowed to do whatever you chose to. But you did anyways. You went behind our backs, you lied to us, and you cheated on your fiancé.”

“Well when that happened, he wasn’t my fiancé.” I returned.

“But I was your boyfriend.” Ash stated.

“No, Cole was.” I argued.

“No, remember you told me that I was?”

“But I told Cole that he was.”

Mom shook her head, “You can’t even remember who you were dating? What does that say about you, Evalynne?”

I bit my lip, realizing how bad this was making me look. But it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help it that my heart just couldn’t decide between Ash and Cole. If it was that easy, I wouldn’t be feeling guilt-ridden for dumping Cole.

My birthday was turning out to be such a disaster.

“Well Ash did the same thing.” I defended myself. “First he was dating me, then he was dating Julianne, then he was dating me again. And then I show up at his house to find some random girl who claimed to be in love with him on his doorstep.”

“That wasn’t my fault!” he cried. “Katrina just showed up!”

“What about when Kristy and you made out?” I disputed.

“You made out with my daughter’s best friend while dating her?” Mom demanded in rage.

“That wasn’t my fault either!” he shouted. “She just came to my house one day and started flirting with me. She kissed me.”

“Well the same thing goes for Cole. When he…touched me, I told him to stop right away. So don’t act like I’m the bad guy here, because you’ve done some pretty stupid stuff too.” I replied.

He sighed, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told your parents what you did like that.”

But I wasn’t going to let him get away with it that easily. “You know, there are two more things that you did that made me angry.” I said.

“Like what?’ he inquired.

“Number one: you punched Cole in the face.”

“Only because he was trying to touch you!” he added.

“And number two:,” I continued, ignoring his comment, “after I called off the marriage, you went behind my back and met with the priest about it anyways, as if we were still going to get married.”

Mom’s eyebrows raised in a mix of anger and disbelief. “Well, I just couldn’t admit to myself that it was over.” he confessed sheepishly. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t want us to be done. I still loved you. And I love you now too. I don’t want you to end up calling this wedding off too just because of this stupid fight. I’m sorry for telling your parents about you and Cole, but as you know, I have a bit of a temper.”

“A bit?” I demanded.

“Ok, so I have a huge temper. But I’m working on changing. For you. Every couple has it’s ups and downs, but we’re just out of control. We need to stop letting every flaw get to us. Neither of us is perfect, we both did things to hurt this relationship. But it’s up to both of us to put it back together. And we only have two weeks to do it. So let’s just stop arguing. Please.”

I couldn’t help but smile. He was just so compassionate, so caring. Unlike any other guy I’d ever met. And that’s why I loved him. “Ok,” I agreed. He smiled back and wrapped me up in his arms.

I heard Mom let out a sigh of irritation mixed with relief. “You two are impossible.” she murmured, but she grinned anyways. “Do you think that you can make the rest of your birthday fight-free?”

“I hope so.” I replied.

“I’m guessing that now would be a good time for me to give you your present.” Ash suggested.

“You got me a present?” I asked.

“Of course, it’s your birthday.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a brochure, handing it to me.

“A brochure for Costa Rica?” I queried. “It’s just what I wanted.” I added sarcastically.

He laughed and explained what it was for, “Well when I’m on leave from the military, I figured that it would be the perfect time for us to go on our honeymoon.” That was all he had to say.

“You’re taking me to Costa Rica?” I exclaimed, overjoyed.

He grinned, “I’m guessing you like your gift?”

“I love it!” I cried, giving him a thank-you-kiss. Was it just me or was Ash the definition of “the perfect guy”?