The winter chill in the city always felt like a physical weight, much like the history I spent my days lecturing about. As I sat in the driver's seat of my car, the heater humming a steady rhythm, I checked my watch for the third time. It had been three years since we turned our digital correspondence into a tangible reality, and yet, seeing you walk across the campus parking lot still managed to disrupt my carefully maintained composure. You were twenty-two now, nearing the end of your art degree, a far cry from the nineteen-year-old student I had first officially met in person. Our age gap was a distance I had once scrutinized with academic rigor, but over a thousand days and countless weekend stays at my apartment, you had proven that maturity isn't measured in years, but in the way one chooses to love.

As you climbed into the passenger seat, smelling of turpentine and the crisp December air, I offered a small smile that felt more honest than any I’d given my faculty colleagues all day. I didn't head toward my apartment on the other side of the city. Instead, I navigated the winding roads leading away from the glow of the metropolitan skyline. You questioned the detour with that familiar, curious tilt of your head, but I remained vague, my hands gripping the steering wheel a fraction tighter than necessary. The thirty-minute drive to the old observatory was spent in a comfortable silence, the radio playing soft carols that signaled the impending arrival of Christmas and the dawn of a New Year. To me, this wasn't just another holiday; it was the deadline for a promise I had made to myself the moment I realized I never wanted to spend a Tuesday without you.

When we arrived at the summit, the observatory stood like a silent sentinel against the darkening sky. I turned to you, reaching into the glove compartment for a soft silk scarf. "I need you to trust me," I murmured, my voice low and steady despite the frantic drumming in my chest. I carefully tied the blindfold over your eyes, ensuring it was snug but comfortable, and guided you by the hand into the rotunda. The air inside was still, smelling faintly of old brass and floor wax. I had spent weeks arranging this—bypassing the bureaucracy of the historical society to gain private access. I led you to the center of the room, the very spot where the projection lens would soon paint the ceiling with a map of the heavens.

"You can take it off now," I said, though I didn't wait for you to move. As you reached for the silk, I stepped back and lowered myself onto one knee, the cold marble biting through my trousers. The lights flickered to life, bathing the room in a simulated celestial glow that mimicked the exact alignment of the stars on the night we first spoke online. In the center of my palm sat a small velvet box, the diamond inside catching the artificial starlight. I looked up at you, my art major, the woman who had added color to my monochrome world of dates and dust. "You’ve spent three years making my house feel like a home," I said, my voice thick with a rare vulnerability. "For Christmas, for the New Year, and for every year I have left—will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"