I knew Gabe was upset with me. But he wouldn't be when he saw what I was doing. I had just gotten back home from picking up the most important thing I'd ever purchased. I was ready to show him but he was upset with me and I didn't know how to ask him to go out with me that night.

"Gabe!" I called out from the door as I entered.

"What?" He asked from the kitchen, sounding annoyed.

"Are you mad at me?" I asked him.

"I'm a little mad at you." He admitted.

"There's no reason to be, I just went to pick something up at the store." I told him, showing him the brown bag that I'd put the thing in so he wouldn't suspect anything.

"What did you buy?" He asked me.

"Can I tell you tonight?" I asked him.

"Ava, you're so secretive." He sighed.

"Be patient with me, Gabe. Please!" I begged him.

"I am being patient. But it doesn't feel good to know that you're intentionally hiding things from me." He said.

"You came home late yesterday. What was that about?" I asked him.

"I was getting you something. And also... I forgot to tell you, Kiara and Vidal are coming back from their honeymoon today." He said to me.

"I know... I'm so excited to see her!" I smiled.

On Vidal and Theo's birthday, a little while before Vidal and Kiara's wedding, everyone planned it perfectly so that Mabel, Theo's high school sweetheart, came back. We had all reached out to her together and we surprised Theo on his birthday. They were such a perfect couple. Kiara and Vidal got married a few days later and off they were on their honeymoon.

I couldn't wait to be in their shoes, so I was taking matters into my own hands. Because it was almost the end of June and this man hadn't proposed yet.

"Please tell me what's been going on, baby." He said.

"I swear, I'll tell you today. Tonight." I assured him.

"Ok, fine. At least agree to go on a date with me." He said, making my plan much easier for me.

"Are you bored?" I giggled.

"Yeah, because my girlfriend doesn't give me any attention anymore." He pouted, making me feel bad.

"Aw, yes I do! I love you so much, Gabe. You're the most important thing in my life." I said to him, walking right up to him and hugging him tightly.

"You'll go out with me in like an hour, then?" He asked, making my plan fit perfectly into the night.

"Of course, what're we doing today?" I asked him.

"Wanna do either an escape room or paintball? I meant to do paintball on your birthday, but you were too tired for it." He chuckled.

"Yes! Paintball!" I giggled.

"Ok. Let me finish making these sandwiches, then we can eat and off we'll go." Gabe said.

"Ok." I nodded.

We sat down, and we ate the delicious sandwiches he made, then we were off to go paint balling.

I knew he was eager to get to the part of the night where I explained, he seemed very nervous the entire time. The paintball helped get our minds off of everything. Then finally I beat him, of course, and we went to sit down in a beautiful park at a bench under a tree.

"Can you explain now, baby?" Gabe asked me. "And after you explain, I want to give you something."

"I can explain now." I said to him, taking his hand and turning to look into his beautiful brown eyes.

"Explain." He nodded, leaning forward and pecking me on the lips.

"Here's the thing, Gabe. There have been times in my life where I felt bad about myself. I felt like I was useless and stupid and far too ambitious. I felt like my dreams weren't achievable and that even if I became a doctor no man would ever love me. Then on my first day of being a doctor, you walked into my life. A strong, brave, kind, cute, funny, persistent teacher." I chuckled, making him laugh.

"And lovestruck." He added.

"And lovestruck." I nodded. "But I never imagined, that you would be so sweet to me, that you'd take care of me the way you did and be there for me even when I tried to push you away. You'd listen, and I mean actually listen. I didn't have to try to force you to pay attention to what I was saying, because you were genuinely ready to listen to it all."

"Of course." Gabe smiled, kissing me gently for a moment before letting me continue.

"And you're just so perfect for me in so many ways. You're clumsy, you run into things every moment of every day, but it's ok. I'll always be there to look after you and make sure you don't hurt yourself. And you on the other hand will be there for me, to teach me." I said.

He smiled, kissing the back of my hand.

"Ever since I met you, you've been teaching me things. First, you taught me that I was actually worth someone's effort. Then you taught me that it's ok to trust. Then you taught me what love is, what a friendship and a partnership should actually be like. You taught me how to be myself without hating who I was being or being embarrassed of it. You taught me that the other people who had told me bad things about myself were just being rude and that what they said wasn't true." I said to him.

"Of course it wasn't true." He sighed, brushing my hair away from my face.

"My life has been a series of pages in a book... and at the beginning, the pages were all jumbled with words, but those words didn't have structure. The first page was my childhood, before school, then I went to school and I met Jordi and that was the second page, elementary with Jordi. Then there was junior high and boy was that a mess, then high school and it was pretty miserable. And then university... that's when the whole Noah fiasco happened, and that was the worst one. I was sitting there juggling being in a completely one sided relationship in terms of effort and trying to get the best grades possible." I sighed, feeling his hand run up and down my back, comforting me.

He connected our foreheads, knowing it was hard for me to talk about what happened with everyone turning on me.

"Then after that, I was confused and I moved to Vancouver, beginning a new, much better page. Unfortunately, medical school wasn't exactly a very refreshing start. It was hard and I had to battle my own insecurities and my self doubt the entire way through. Still everything was so messy and disorganized. When I finished med school, I felt like I was empowered. I had achieved what they told me I couldn't and I had a boost of self esteem and self worth. I felt so much more confident and felt like I was worthy of someone loving me the way I wanted. So I decided to try giving a relationship a chance." I explained.

Gabe smiled, knowing that's where he came into the page.

"Then my residency began, and in walked in that handsome, bubbly, persistent teacher. He had these brown eyes that I can never forget. The way he looked at me was different and it struck a chord in my cold little heart." I smiled.

"I love you." He whispered, kissing my lips gently for a moment.

"I love you too, Gabe. That's where another page began. A more organized, structured, happy page. After that it's hard to say where a page starts and where it ends, but I know for sure that a new page started when I finally became your girlfriend." I told him.

He smiled.

"Those were good pages. The residency and friendship with Gabe page and then the Gabe's girlfriend page. And that 'Gabe's girlfriend' page has been a very long page... we're running out of space on this page to keep writing things." I told him, beginning to get a little emotional.

He chuckled.

"So after that fair when I saw how cute you were with all those little angels, I felt something in me. An urge to move forward with you. We live together and we're so in love. We've been through a lot. You can handle my temper tantrums and my irrationality at times... you're just perfect for me. You're my teacher after all. You teach me everything there is to know about how to be a good, honest, loving person. I'd never give our relationship up for anything." I told him, a tear falling from my watery eyes.

His eyes started to water too and he kissed me again.

"So... after that fair, I started keeping secrets, but only because I wanted to ask you something and I needed to prepare." I explained. "I'm ready for the next page with you to start, Gabe. I'm ready to learn more from you and get one step closer to being completely bound to each other.... So, Mr. Morelli, love of my life... will you do me the honour of starting that next page with me?"

He looked kind of shocked as I got up and got down on one knee in front of him, taking out the ring I bought for him. Both of us were crying now but he was more shocked than anything.

"Will you marry me, Teach?" I asked him.

"Are you serious?" He chuckled, pulling a little box out of his back pocket and opening it to reveal a pretty ring.

"You couldn't wait like five more minutes so I could do this?" He asked me with a laugh, wiping his left eye.

"Were you going to say stuff?" I asked him.

"Yeah." He nodded with a laugh, wiping away my tears.

"Say them." I told him as he got down on his knee in front of me.

"You know I'm a family man." He started, making me nod. "And you know, because I've told you, that sometimes I can be super sensitive and I feel other peoples pain, especially when I help my family members with their problems."

I nodded my head, urging him to continue.

"Well, I was always missing something. My heart was so ready to love. It was untouched and waiting for that one special girl to touch it, and then one day there was a crash and me being me, I hurt myself. And somehow, my little untouched heart, full of love, was touched my a kinda cold one. It wasn't even a gentle touch though.... You and your little cold attitude, grabbed my heart and stitched it together with yours. Just like the stitches you put in my arm... and that's when I realized that my heart was never a full heart, it was half a heart and it was missing the other half... yours. Yours was a little cold, I had to wait for it to thaw.... It may or may not have taken two full years.... But in the end, it realized that it belonged where it was."

I nodded my head, laughing as I wiped away his tears.

"You're always there to make sure I don't severely injure myself... or die... and that's beautiful, Ava. Because God knows without you, I'd end up accidentally falling off a cliff because I'm just that clumsy." He chuckled. "You said I was your teacher, and now I'm telling you, you're my doctor. Anytime anything happens, if we just talk about it, I feel so much better about everything. You put my head in the right place and you help me through so much. And not to mention my medication that you give me everyday.... Speaking of which, I didn't have enough today." He said, pulling me in for a kiss.

We kissed each other deeply for a minute and then pulled away. Both of us were really emotional but also laughing because of Gabe's subtle jokes.

"So... my only issue now is that, I need you, Doc... and I need you to be there forever.... I want you to marry me, Ava... there you have it, all the information laid out for you, now.... What's your diagnosis, Doc?" He asked me, lifting the ring box slightly as if offering the ring to me.

"Marriage.... But only if you'll marry me." I said.

"Deal!" He laughed, taking the ring he bought me and slipping it onto my finger while I grabbed his hand and slipped his ring onto his finger.

"I can't believe you beat me to it." He said with a laugh.

"I can't believe we both planned to do it on the same night!" I giggled. "Oh, also.... I told the family to meet us at the mansion after this to celebrate...."

"And I told them to meet us here and witness it." He laughed.

"Oh my goodness, they all knew." I said, wondering why none of the girls told me exactly.

"Best proposal ever!" Juliet chuckled, running out from behind a tree and launching herself at me.

I giggled and hugged her as the other girls ran out to pile up on top of me.

"Guys! I'm gonna die, get off me!" I squeaked.

"Love you so much, Ava!" Mabel chuckled.

Mabel was more like me that the other girls, except her confidence levels were through the roof.

"I'm next, guys.... You hear that, Theo? I'm next." Mabel said.

"No.... I'm next.... When are you proposing, baby?" Romeo asked Juliet.

"Hey! I won't be doing any proposing." Juliet warned him.

"Fine, I'll do it.... But I'm doing it before Theo." Romeo said, sticking his tongue out at Mabel.

"That's fine.... Hurry up, Romeo!" Mabel said. "Make her my sister for real!"

"Why do you scream so much? Oh my God, you're so annoying." Remi said, rolling his eyes.

"Theo! Shut him up!" Mabel called out.

"Remi, shut it." Theo laughed.

"Remi, shut it." Remi mocked him.

"Gabey, pick me up!" Nora said, trying to climb Gabe's legs.

Gabe picked her up and placed her on his shoulders, making her squeal. Mila and Mia each attached themselves to one of his legs and I giggled.

We all went back to the mansion to have dinner together. Romeo and Mabel were bickering the entire time, because their personalities were so similar, it was exhausting.

Eventually, they both shut up, and Mabel hopped onto Theo's back. She eventually fell asleep. Then Nora started to doze off and Romeo took her in his arms and held her close. The way he looked at her like she was the most fragile, precious little gem, it was adorable.

We all eventually reached the house and we had some delicious dinner. We played some board games and had some double chocolate brownies. Everything was perfect. And Gabe and I had started a new page that I was very excited about. We were finally engaged.

I was so happy already, I felt like the day couldn't be anymore perfect. But then, all of a sudden, my parents came down the stairs to congratulate me. I knew they were coming, but they told me they'd arrive two days from then, and all of a sudden they were already there.

"Surprise." Gabe chuckled, kissing my cheek as I got up and threw myself into my parents' arms.

They all sat down, already having met everyone and they joined us in our celebration.