Everything is Secondary to Loving You

Ask me again tomorrow

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“Do you remember when you first fell in love with me?” you asked, sleep lacing your voice into a velvet soft whisper.

“Of course.”

“Tell me about it.”  

Turning to my side, I stared at you. Eyes closed as your head rested on the pillow, hands tucked up to your face as dark tendrils of hair fell around your head. Gently, I reached up and pushed back a stand. You sighed into sleep from my touch.

I knew you were asleep the same way I knew my heart was beating beneath my chest, because you and I are one, but I answered you anyway…

“The first time I fell in love with you…do you remember when we first met? Of course you do, you remember everything. Not me. I never had your memory, that’s probably why you’re asking, right? Well, I’ll surprise you by saying: I do remember. You walked in and every guy held their breath hoping you’d look their way. All my friends were giving me a hard time, she’s out of your league, you shouldn’t even try, they kept saying. That was the running joke. You gave me that look though, that look that makes my knees shake. Let’s prove them wrong. That’s what you whispered in my ear. Those four soft words, that’s all it took, as you grabbed my arm, and I breathed you in.

I walked you to your dorm later that night. You called me a gentleman, but I just wanted to soak you in because I knew they were right. You were out of my league. On our walk, there was slow music coming from another campus house, like someone was practicing for a symphony. You stopped under the lamppost and asked me if I’d dance with you.

I’d never danced one day in my life, but I’ll tell anyone honestly that I said yes faster than my mind processed your question. That was the first time I fell in love with you. Under that lamppost, fumbling over my feet as some sophomore practiced their sheet music. You looked at me and all I saw was a wildflower soul, a midnight smile, sunset eyes, a mind full of curious thoughts, and heart full of surprises.

We’d met maybe three hours earlier, but I’ll write it on my gravestone that I knew I loved you in that moment. Not because of your undeniable beauty or your fluid dancing or because you were kind enough to think I could prove my friends wrong by picking you up. Knowing I loved you was deeper than all that. Knowing I loved you was like knowing I needed air to survive. I can’t explain it in any other way or maybe I’m just not fluent enough to. All I know is that air, food, sleep, everything I was taught that I needed to live, came secondary to loving you. I knew, in that moment, that you were all I needed to survive. Everything else was secondary.

It’s all been secondary.

That’s when I fell in love with you for the first time. But ask me tomorrow night about the time I fell in love with you after that, because I have fallen in love with you every single day since we met, and I’ll tell you every single one of those memories until loving you kills me. Then I’ll send them to you in sheet music for the great symphonies to play so that even when I’m gone you can hear about every time I fell in love with you, and you can dance for me under the lamppost.”

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