Last night, my boyfriend of three years took me to our favorite hiking spot at sunset. I could tell he was nervous, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise by saying anything.

Just as he got down on one knee, my dog—who had been off-leash—sprinted past us chasing a squirrel and knocked the ring box out of his hand.

We both watched in horror as it rolled down the hill. After a frantic 20-minute search in the bushes, he stood up, shaking his head.

Then he said, “Well, I guess this is a sign because I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something,” he continued, the words hanging in the air like they had their own weight.

His shoulders sagged, the nervous energy from moments ago replaced with something harder to define—regret, maybe? Discomfort? My heart hammered in my chest as I tried to decode his expression.

“A sign of what?” I asked, forcing a laugh to lighten the tension. It came out thin, brittle.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, glancing down the hill again as if hoping the missing ring box might magically reappear and spare him from saying whatever he was about to say. “I just… I’ve been feeling like maybe we’ve been on different paths lately.”

Different paths? The phrase hit me like a punch to the stomach. We both loved hiking, sure, but this wasn’t a metaphor I’d ever expected to hear from him.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my voice higher and sharper than I intended.

“It’s just…” He hesitated, and that hesitation made my throat tighten. “You’ve been talking about wanting to move to a bigger city for your career, and I love it here. I don’t want to leave. And lately, it’s felt like we’re… I don’t know. Not quite on the same page.”

“So, what? You were going to propose anyway?” The words spilled out before I could stop them. “Despite feeling like this?”

He winced. “I thought maybe… maybe it would help us feel more secure. Like we could work through things together. But then the ring box…” He gestured helplessly at the hill, as if the universe itself had intervened to make his point. “It felt like a sign.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both. Instead, I turned and called for my dog, who had taken advantage of our distraction to vanish into the trees. “Scout! Here, boy!” My voice cracked halfway through.

Scout trotted back with a wagging tail and a look that could only be described as shamelessly proud of himself. His fur was matted with burrs, and a smudge of dirt streaked across his snout.

He looked so ridiculous that a laugh bubbled up despite everything. It escaped as more of a choked sob.

My boyfriend—maybe ex-boyfriend? The thought twisted painfully—took a step closer. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to come out like this.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” I muttered, scrubbing at my eyes with the heel of my hand. “So, what happens now?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice soft. “I think we need to talk about what we both really want. But maybe not here.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and started back down the trail with Scout trotting at my heels. The sunset, which had been breathtakingly beautiful moments ago, now felt garish and overdone. It painted everything in hues of orange and pink that felt too loud for the quiet ache settling in my chest.

The days that followed were a blur of half-finished conversations and awkward silences. We didn’t break up—not officially, anyway—but it felt like we were circling around the inevitable. The ring box, for all our searching, remained lost, and with it went any illusion that things could go back to how they were.

One evening, as I sat on the couch scrolling mindlessly through social media, a post from a local hiking group caught my eye. Someone had found a ring box on the trail near the overlook and was looking for its owner. My stomach flipped as I read the post twice to be sure. The box was dented and scratched, but the photo left no doubt it was ours.

I hesitated, then sent the finder a message. Within minutes, they replied, and we arranged to meet the next day at a coffee shop in town.

The woman who handed me the ring box was in her sixties, with wiry gray hair pulled into a ponytail and a weathered face that spoke of years spent outdoors. She introduced herself as Maggie and refused to let me thank her without first hearing the story of how the box ended up lost.

By the time I finished recounting the saga, she was chuckling. “Well, sounds like Scout had his own plans for the evening. Dogs do have a way of keeping us humble, don’t they?”

I nodded, managing a weak smile. “Yeah, something like that.”

She hesitated, then said, “Can I give you some advice?” When I nodded again, she leaned in slightly.

“Don’t let a moment of bad luck make you second-guess everything. If this man’s worth it, you’ll figure things out together. And if he’s not, well, then this—” she tapped the ring box “—is just a fancy paperweight.”

Her words stayed with me long after she left. That evening, I sat across from my boyfriend at the kitchen table, the ring box between us, and told him everything Maggie had said.

“She’s right,” I finished. “We need to figure this out. Together. For real.”

He nodded slowly, his eyes on the box. “I want that too.”

For the first time in weeks, it felt like we were on the same path again.