In the memory, it’s more than butterflies. It’s the expanding, electric heat of stars exploding inside your ribcage. The jittery anticipation that hits like five cups of espresso, back to back.
Short stubble grazing my throat. The taste of tequila on his mouth- my own drink suddenly unsteady in my grasp. His chuckle is the same warm honey flickering across my bedroom walls.
“Careful.”
Nothing about this was careful. It was impulsive, reckless. Delicious. My heart was gunpowder fragile, fingers fumbling frantically with matches. I was braced for the inevitable fallout; and entirely unprepared for the relentless, steady burn- the inexplicable familiarity.
It blurs- barstools, rooftops, audacious laughter whipped away by the wind atop a water tower. Highway-1 spooling out ahead of us, the way salt water tastes on skin. Foreign wine and favorite mugs.
I’ve always heard that the best love is the most unexpected. The one you weren’t even looking for, that mends and redefines all your preconceived notions. Something so entirely accidental it seems serendipitous.
Arguments as heated as the endless cups of coffee. Saturday nights stumbling out of my shoes with his hands tangled in my hair. Lazy Sundays sprawled out on the sofa; “five more minutes” every Monday morning without fail.
And somewhere amongst all of that, in the mess and the magic, another year has gone by.