Some people feel too good to be true. Like incredible freaks of nature, they feel like too  great a work of fate to simply stumble across. My sister glistens with astonishing selflessness; her generosity radiates from her jade green eyes. Strangers have always found a friend in her. My best friend treats her greatest love and greatest enemy with the same tenderness, bringing warmth to the coldest hearts with her bare hands. And then you came. 

There is so much love in my life that I am unafraid to write about — I started this magazine, for God’s sake. I longed for a museum of muses, a magazine encapsulating the love of others. You encouraged me. 

It is you — the person I think of when I look at the stars and the sun — that I can’t bear to put on the page. This pen-to-paper cements your beauty in words, big beautiful glowing lights. I can’t take it back. I can’t take it back once I say you were the person who showed me how love changes the way I see a bee hiding in a flower.  The passions that were all my own but feel different now that I have you.

A few days ago, as we crossed the street hand in hand, you told me that since we’ve been together, you’ve stopped believing it’s possible to make art that isn’t about love. I can’t think of a moment in my life when I have been more moved — that sweet, simple moment at the intersection of East William and South Division. Our favorite Indian restaurant’s porch lights made your eyes sparkle against the tear-stained clouds. You brought an umbrella even though I said I wouldn’t need one. I did need it, but you would never tell me that you told me so. 

I dreamt of you before I knew you. I wondered about a beautiful boy who would pay attention. I searched for some semblance of you in every romantic interaction I had. One guy was interesting and driven like you, another focused on art and the finer things in life — southern sunsets and ambient music. The first guy made me walk back to my dorm alone at 4 am, the only time I have been genuinely scared for my life on a walk home. The other decided that I was too much for him, resorting to shitty excuse after shitty excuse to ease my pain. I took everything so seriously and did everything I could to please this all-knowing fictional guy. I gave all I could to be the manic pixie dream girl that he searched for, cool enough to be eclectic but not so intelligent that he felt intimidated. 

It is you, my lover, who saw me for who I was the whole time. When you found me – blood-curdling scream, throwing my arms around every person’s neck before I got to you – you told me it was love at first sight. Although that night’s memories blur together, I remember the first time we made eye contact. I remember thinking, “This is going to hurt.” We introduced ourselves and from then on, you had an umbrella for every occasion.

That star-crossed August night, I put on my eyeliner and a white lace dress. I got ready with my two best friends to reunite with everyone we’d missed over the summer, bound for a string light–soaked backyard. We all overindulged and swayed to Stevie Wonder and jazzy love songs I couldn’t identify. The friend I’d been waiting for let me know he’d made it to the too-crowded-for-comfort party, and I stumbled to the front yard. I saw him and screamed at the top of my lungs, just happy to be there. I turned to my right and I saw a row of people I loved, and at the end of it, you. Considering our mildly awkward history (me ghosting you after deciding that you took too long to text back), I walked up to you, after pulling everyone in the line leading up to you into tight hugs, and held out my hand. We engaged in a semi-awkward handshake. After being hot enough to be liked but never loved by so many people, I knew this game well. I could picture myself in the shower the next day listening to “Everything is Embarrassing” and replaying the night like a film, wondering what I could have done better. What I could have done to be deemed enough. Should I have been quieter? Should I have been cooler or calmer? From the time I felt your palm against mine, I knew that this night would be one I would think back on in the depths of loneliness. Insecurity feels so irrational now. 

Post-introductions, we went back to the party together. We yelled in each other’s ears until I had no choice but to drag you away from your friends so I could cling to everything you said. You willingly followed, and we found ourselves sitting on a steep dirt hill sharing our favorite songs — the ones that still make us cry. We talked about our favorite books and about religion and about the South, but none of this mattered to me as much as the way that you listened so attentively, holding on tight to every syllable as if it were life or death. You walked me home despite my intense assertion that I could get there on my own. 

I never walked home alone again.

My grandmother always told me to never rely on a man. She thought I should always have a life that was my own. But you give me that and more. You root for me in ways no one else has. You hold me accountable for my aspirations, even when I doubt them. You motivate me to do and be my best: your kindness is so infectious. You love everyone I love as if they were me. My best friends know that they can call on you in times of need. I never thought that I would be able to find someone who loves as fearlessly and fully as you do. 

You told me once that we are lucky that we have this. That not everyone gets the chance to feel a love like ours, and I can’t expect them to understand how good it can be when they simply can’t grasp it. It’s true: even the greatest authors rarely capture how I feel about you. I guess this is my final surrender, I’m broadcasting to the world what it is to be loved by you. And if we can’t be together forever, at least I won’t have kept my love for you a secret.