Cat blinked back hot tears. All around them, children squealed with delight as they dashed from one colorful egg to the next. 

“So that’s it, then?” she asked Christopher. “After all this time, you’re saying we’re over?”

His eyes pleaded with her to understand. “We just don’t have much in common. And there’s not even any chemistry, Cat.”

She took a step back, stunned and insulted all at once. “And you’re doing this here? In the middle of the city Easter egg hunt?”

“Aunt Cat! Look at this one!” Her niece, Riley, rushed over, holding a giant pink plastic egg aloft.

“Th-that’s a big one, sweetie.” Cat pressed her hand to her forehead and forced a smile.

Riley skipped off and Christopher stepped closer. “Try to see it from my perspective, Cat. I can’t waste any more of my time—”

She gasped. “Waste your time?!” Her voice rose. “Go. Just—” 

She whirled away, putting as much distance between them as possible. 

Something crunched beneath her shoe. Cat looked down to see two halves of a plastic egg, the candy already claimed, now cracked and broken. Just like her heart. She bent to gather the sharp pieces.

“How’s it going, Kitty Cat?” The familiar voice of her best friend was her undoing. She lurched to her feet and collapsed against him in tears. 

For a second Brody looked shocked, and then he wrapped his arms securely around her. “Tell me.”

The story poured out of her while Brody listened intently. Leaning back, Cat looked up into his face. “And the worst part is that he was riiiight,” she wailed. “I don’t love him—but I’m almost thirty-five years old! What if he was my last chance?”

Brody looked at her sternly. “Cat.” He took her face in his hands and brushed tears away, thumbs sliding across her wet cheeks. “Don’t even think things like that. You’re young and beautiful—”

Frustrated, Cat tried to turn away from her friend, but he pulled her back around.

“Listen to me, Cat. You deserve someone who appreciates you—your sense of humor, and the way you’ll drop everything to help a friend.” His hands gripped her shoulders as if willing her to believe him. “Someone who doesn’t mind your lack of punctuality or your cooking disasters. Who wants to spend every minute with you." 

Brody’s eyes blazed and Cat found herself noticing the solid strength of his hold and the intensity in his deep voice as his words fell on her like a gentle spring rain. 

“Someone who will find you Chinese food at 10pm,” he continued, “because that’s when you’re hungry. And who will rub your feet while he watches sappy Hallmark movies with you. Someone—”

“Someone like you,” she said slowly. 

For the first time, Brody’s voice turned unsure. “So . . . you really didn’t love him?”

She shook her head, still gazing at him with new eyes.

Brody’s stance morphed from impassioned to confident. “I’ve been waiting two decades for you to realize what I knew when we were 12 years old.” 

Uncontrollable giggles leaked out of her. “Are you invoking the Pact of 2003?” 

“I am,” he said with a gravity that belied the sparkle in his eyes. “We promised that if we were still best friends and not married by the time we were forty, then we would marry each other.”

Brody reached into his pocket and pulled out a rustling cellophane package. He ripped it open and held up a bright red lollipop ring. “You have been my favorite person my whole life, Kitty Cat.” He knelt before her. “Will you marry me?”

“This is crazy, Brody! Isn’t it?” Her mind swirled with confusion and possibilities. 

“The only crazy thing I see is me . . . about you.”

Cat looked down at the pieces of plastic egg still in her hand. They didn’t represent brokenness after all. The shell of her heart had opened to let a new love, fully grown, hatch free. 

In slow motion, she slipped the pieces into her pocket and sank to her own knees. She held out her hand for Brody’s candy ring. “I will.” 

A wide grin lit his face, and she knew it matched hers. This felt so right. 

The ring was too small for her ring finger, but slid most of the way down her pinkie. Giddy with love, they laughed at the enormous candy diamond until Cat threw herself into Brody’s arms. She knocked him back onto his heels and clung to him, sure she could feel their hearts thumping recklessly as one. 

Riley appeared. “Aunt Cat, what are you doing in the grass? Are you looking for something?”

“Actually, no, sweetheart. Not anymore,” Cat said, locking eyes with Brody. “We’ve already found it.”