From the moment I laid my eyes on you, I just knew I wanted to grow old with you. Your carefree yet serious attitude was very admirable to me; you are an easy person to read because you want to be heard, to make others comfortable. You had achieved that right balance of openness and preservation, enough to know where to draw the line and enough to know what you want. You were a much welcomed glittering ocean to bless the desert of my days.

You are the main character of everyone’s story. I guess that’s why I was so drawn to you, desperately wanted to be by your side because I’m merely a passing character in even my own story. At least I would be able to choose the main lead for my story. But you ripped the pages from its spine and burned it with your passionate belief: It’s unfair to constrict living to written ink on paper.

After spending years with you, I think I finally understand.

I was in a complicated relationship with myself when I found you: juggling my schoolwork, tiring job, and discovering my true self identity. I didn’t have time or the energy to think beyond my initial impression that I wanted to be with you for a long time. But now, it runs deeper than that shallow notion of shadowing you.

I was never afraid of what it could’ve meant.

What I love about you is how you always make yourself clear. Every brush of our shoulders is intentional, but never calculating. Every patient pat on my back after I empty out my stomach as you hold onto my hair is because you care about me, about us. Every sigh you let out after I run into some trouble is always accompanied with a fond twinkle in your eyes. Every time we hug as we greet each other hello or goodbye or kiss each other’s cheek as we evade the other’s punch of surprise or link arms so we don’t get lost in the crowd or hold hands while singing drunk karaoke or lock pinkies for stupid promises we’ll forget in a month’s time or… or….

All of that? That’s out of love.

Yeah, I was never afraid that your glittering ocean tickled my toes the first time you pulled an all nighter for me to help study, lapped against my ankles the second time you took me Denny’s for some hangover food, rose to my chest comfortably the fifth time you tickled my weak spot just to get the both of us to laugh, and finally overwhelmed me completely — water over head, water in my nose — because your love was so, so clear.

The ocean is terrifying. But you are comforting.

You taught me how to live and to set fire to the limits I subconsciously set for myself. And you taught me how to love because that’s just you, and that’s just us.

“I love you,” you mumbled to me a few moments ago, hands interlaced and legs intertwined.

“I know.” … “I love you.”

You hummed as your lips grew into a small smile. It was knowing, knowing how that brief pause was deliberate, not hesitation, knowing how I conveniently left out that tacky “too.” (After all, I learned only from the best.)

You always seem to know what to say: “I know.”

author’s note