It's the secret smile you get from knowing that, somewhere, there is someone who is yours. Not in the sense that you own her or control her. She is yours because you can say anything to her, whenever you need to. And she can do the same, whenever she needs to.

Yes, we could talk to you for days on end about all the bad first dates. Those are stories. Funny stories. Awkward stories. Stories we love to share, because by sharing them, we get something out of the hour or two we wasted on the wrong person. But that's all bad first dates are: short stories. Good first dates are more than short stories. They are first chapters. On a good first date, everything is springtime. And when a good first date becomes a relationship, the springtime lingers. Even after it's over, there can be springtime.

There was a pause. I was still scared by every gap in our conversation, fearing that this was it, the point where we had nothing left to say. I was still trying to impress you, and I still wanted to be impressed by you, so I could pass along pieces of your impressiveness to my friends, convincing myself this was possible.

If you zoom close-if you get really close to someone, if you really get close to yourself-then you lose the other person, you lose yourself entirely. You get so close you can't see anything anymore.

It doesn't have to be on Valentine's Day. It doesn't have to be by the time you turn eighteen or thirty-three or fifty-nine. It doesn't have to conform to whatever is usual. It doesn't have to be kismet at once, or rhapsody by the third date. It just has to be. In time. In place. In spirit. It just has to be.

I will be the one to leave you.

You never let things go unanswered for too long. Emails. Phone calls. Questions. As if you know the waiting is the hardest part for me.