With You Forever

“I want you to know… Home, yes, it’s that cabin in the woods that I love, with a bed we broke and pets we adore, and a place we made ours. But, more than anything, no matter where I am or where you are, this is home.” Placing my hand over his heart, his hand over mine, I tell him with each kiss,

Here.

With You.

Forever.

He presses his forehead to mine. “But most of all…I want to be with you forever. Not just for a whirlwind month. Not even until death do us part. I want every day, cramming as many lifetimes as possible into the one we’ve been given because finding you thirty years into my existence and only getting one chance to love you isn’t nearly enough.”

He presses his forehead to mine. “But most of all…I want to be with you forever. Not just for a whirlwind month. Not even until death do us part. I want every day, cramming as many lifetimes as possible into the one we’ve been given because finding you thirty years into my existence and only getting one chance to love you isn’t nearly enough.”

If you’re ready, if you can forgive me, please come.

Because I want us. I want you here, with me. Yesterday. A week ago. Forever.

Love,

Axel

If you can forgive me, I want to be brave with you, Rooney. I want to stretch and grow side by side. I want to wait for you, and trust you, and show you that we can do this. Together.

I’ve looked at you before as the Swedish word blossomed in my thoughts—solros—sun-rose, that’s what it translates to. It’s so perfectly you. The sun-gold warmth of your hair, the rose-pink of your lips when you smile and your cheeks when you blush. The feelings they evoke, too: the joyful hope of a sunrise, the comforting gratitude of a sunset, the sense of wonder they both herald, for another day of life that I once considered a gift but learned to call a miracle because you were there, sharing life with me.

She glances my way and catches me staring at her. “You’re not watching the sunrise,” she says.

“No.”

A blush stains her cheeks as she smiles faintly, her expression perplexed. “You love sunrises.”

“I love you more.”

Because I have never done this before. Loved someone the way I love her. Loved so much, I want to give her everything and protect her from everything and love her with every possible part of myself that I can. I don’t know how, or if I can, but I won’t know until I try.

I love him. I think I’ve been falling in love for quite a while. Like a domino effect, it’s been moment after moment, one tipped onto the other, building speed and beauty as they connected. Before the last inevitable click as that final piece fell and revealed itself.

Love.

“Do you remember how it went? ‘No mistakes…’”

“‘…just happy accidents,’” I tell her quietly, moved by the truth in those words. That’s what they are, the circumstances that led her here, that made us collide and our paths converge…not mistakes, even though they felt like it, but the happiest accidents.

The ones that gave me her.