He wears his pain on his sleeves, and hides his joys in his heart, because he’s so damn terrified of losing them. And maybe that’s why you clash sometimes, because you’re the opposite, Becca. You only share your joy, while you hide your pain. And, maybe, if you can both find a way to balance that, you’ll find the coast.

Always faithful.

Are you planning on coming out and kissing me any time soon? Or should I just stab myself in the chest, rip out my heart, and leave it out in the open?

Don’t you want to be the first to touch something? To reach out and grasp onto the world around you? You can’t touch it if you can’t see it.

I think, ultimately, that’s what true love is, you know? To want to be someone’s hero when they’re faced with villains. To want to be to be the one that saves them. To be their Wonderwall.

We filled our days with porch-step kisses, filled our ears with three-year-old laughter, and filled our hearts with love. Deep, soul-aching, desperate love.

Because sometimes you need to have nightmares to appreciate the dreams.

The things most people took for granted were the things I made sure to pay special attention to: sunrises and sunsets; driving with the top down – or just driving at all; being able to wake up and know that it was safe to play outside with the kids, and, in a world populated by dictators and strewn with war zones, I wasn’t surrounded by any of them.

And I decide then and there that he may possibly be my favorite person in the entire world.

I blink back my own and try to stay strong, for her. “If you need proof that magic exists, I’m right here.