They wouldn't understand, and I don't feel the need to explain, simply because I know in my heart how real it was. When I think of you, I can't help smiling, knowing that you've completed me somehow. I love you, not just for now, but for always, and I dream of the day that you'll take me in your arms again

Even his highly emotional Italian mother didn't believe that true love could blossom overnight. Like his brothers and sisters-in-law, she wanted nothing more for him than to marry and start a family, but if he showed up at her doorstep and said that he'd met someone two days ago and knew she was the one for him, his mother would smack him with a broom, curse in Italian, and drag him to church, sure that he had some serious sins that needed confessing.

Finally getting control of myself, I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. Even now she was perfect.

I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?

Loving once and only once is possible - anything is possible.

The sky grew darker and the moon rose higher as the evening wore on. and without either or them being conscious of it, they began to regain the intimacy, the bond of familiarity, they had once shared.

She was struck by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people.