Last night, my life fell into place, and I can picture the exact moment when.

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It’s when he took my face in his hands, and pulled my face up to meet his gaze... I knew. He chose. And it was finally me. After everything we put each other through, trying to hate each other, the things we said to justify the misplaced anger. I remember his eyes, as he stared into mine and he apologized over and over. And he told me that he shouldn’t have run. He didn’t know what he was feeling. That he had never felt like this before, and that what he thought was love really was nothing close. That he was so scared because everything was so intense, so fast; right from the start.

The intense need to be around one another, the feeling of freedom in not having to hide from each other, any thing. I knew him already, like he knew me. I could tell that he knew every part of me, and I had only laid eyes on him while he was walking through the doors of my apartment building, snow flying in the wind behind him.

I think I nearly died of happiness in that moment, and oh, the thought of that feeling... of his forehead touching mine, tilting my face upwards into his, just standing there. Feeling him radiate love again, like fire. Loving me and meaning it. Something I missed. Him asking for forgiveness and at the same time asking for me to be his again. Promising me that he would never hurt me again. Because, he was right, I was his and will always be, his. In the same way that he is mine. We always felt it; from the first time he kissed me, standing in my living room on the first night we met. When our teeth lightly knocked together and he made a joke about it - I felt it. The recognition, the feeling of wholeness. The feeling of being reunited with something that you loved but didn’t know that you were missing.

It is extremely terrifying to admit that there is someone that makes you feel such a way... it feels wonderful and frightening, and it gives me such an anxiety, but in a good way, in a way I can’t even begin to explain. It sends shivers down to the base of my spine, and brings a subtle, stupid smile to my face.

But on the other side, I’m also scared to death of him, I’m scared that he will pull away again. That he will decide that he doesn’t know what to do with how he is feeling, or how I show him I care, and when I simply just need to touch him.

All I think about the pain I felt when he told me that he couldn’t, that he didn’t want to be with me, to be friends, to make plans. That he was meant to be alone, when he wasn’t. When he said that he was just too broken and too damaged from everyone else in his past, to love me because he didn’t know if he could love... It felt like salt being rubbed in a wound that covered my entire body. It felt like a hundred thousand tiny pins being dug into my skin. It was uncomfortable, it was nauseating, it made my stomach drop into the pit of my stomach and twist into a million fraying knots.

In that moment, I felt my entire heart break and shatter like glass. I’ve never felt something that had no psychical form, hurt me so deeply, so profoundly. And I, unable to do absolutely anything to stop the ache. My eyes rained tears, I could not control the sobs that were coming up from my chest and leaving my mouth. I could not control how my shoulders fell and let my head dip onto my knees, lifeless, as I wrapped my arms around my legs and just wept.

How I fell asleep with tears still dripping from my eyes. When I woke up with my pillow wet, and my face still damp and blotchy with tears. And yet, I could not think of anything but him and how I absolutely, unequivocally, needed him. Period. I needed HIM to be with me. And if I couldn’t have him as my lover, than it was meant to be as something else. A partner?

As I sat in a bath filled with hot water, knees up to my chest, smoking bowl after bowl from my bong, begging someone or something for clarity, I think. I decided that I would wait. Even if that meant forever. For as long as it took for him to realize that I was his, and that I always had been. In whatever capacity he needed me to be, whatever role he needed me to play in his life- I was willing. Just so I could hear his voice, see him smile, make him laugh and feel his eyes upon me. I was willing to see him choose what he would think was happiness with someone else. I was willing to support any decision, and any idea he had. That sacrifice? That is love. Something that can feel so right, and leave you so empty.

I did not want to lose him, not after I had spent so long searching.