He always told me to look strong, even if I didn't feel it, because sometimes, that's all you can do.

I was laughing and he was too, and there we were, tangled up together in the water and sunshine. In a good kind of way.

I flash to the picture on my dresser, the red glass heart encased safely in its bottle, and then to all of Colton's ships in theirs, and that's when I realise the truth in the words scrawled over the wall above them: "A ship is safe in harbour, but that is not what ships are meant for". This is what they're meant for, this feeling right here. And maybe... maybe it's what hearts are meant for too.

A thousand fireworks explode inside me, and I feel them in him too, in his lips on mine, and his hands in my hair, and he way we pull each other closer. Everything else falls away, and in this moment, when we touch, we are light.

Soaring hopes and crashing let downs. Fund raisers and family vigils. Big scares and little victories.

Each heartbeat begins with a single, electrical impulse, or "spark." The distinctive sound we hear through a stethoscope, or when we place our head on a loved one's chest, is the sound of the heart valves opening and closing in perfect synchronicity with each other. It is a two-party rhythm - a delicate dance of systole and diastole, which propels the heart's electrically charged particles through its chambers roughly every second of the day, every day of our lives.