He’d apparently gone straight to the Post to work out a deal on my behalf and then to my hospital to fix things there as well. It was more than I had ever expected and something I never would have asked him to do.

I didn’t care what people called him in the press and online. They were wrong, and they didn’t know him the way I did. He was a godsend. And he was mine.

When Social Month had finally rolled around, none of what we were doing in public had been an act anymore. Nothing about our relationship was fake, and to be honest, maybe it never had been. Looking back at it now, I thought that even when I’d hated him, there was something more lingering just behind the veil ... something softer, something more along the lines of love and less like hate.

We posed for pictures, made out in front of throngs of people, held hands, and gazed into each other’s eyes—the way people in love tended to do. Our photos were splashed across various media outlets, but only one—the Post—had pictures that no one else did. That was the deal Joseph had worked out with the reporter there.

And when the two of us met with her one snow-filled afternoon for our first joint interview ever, she actually apologized to me for writing the article about my burns and exposing the fact that I was badly scarred without giving me a heads-up or any kind of warning. We talked about what her report had done and how it had affected me emotionally and professionally. She put part of our conversation in her final article but not before sending it to me first for my approval. It was a kindness she hadn’t had to offer but had, and I respected her for it. Joseph and I continued to work with Daisy exclusively, which gave her a little more credibility. And when she took a job at a more reputable company, we followed her there as well.

Everything between us fell into place so easily and quickly that no one around us questioned it. Not even when he paid off my student loans behind my back even though I’d told him not to. I figured his mom would think I was using him for his money, but she never once accused me of that or thought it. Trust me, I’d asked.

“I’m doing this for us,” Joseph kept saying whenever I fought him on the subject until, one day, it finally clicked for me.

We weren’t temporary.

What we had was real, and it was going to last forever. He hadn’t paid off my loans to help clear my debt; he had done it for us, for our future, because there would be an us until the day we died.

And when he slipped that massive diamond ring on my finger one night during dessert, hiding it inside of some elaborate chocolate horse-and-carriage design, I started crying. When Kayla, his mom, and my parents suddenly appeared out of nowhere, I cried even harder. Joseph was always thinking of everything, leaving no stone unturned.