And the very important fact that I'm here to worry with you and go through all of this - every little bit of it - by your side, even your worst-case-scenario, should it somehow come to that. You wouldn't be doing any of it alone.' Her voice drops and she looks down at our hands, fingers entwined, resting on her lap. 'Whatever happens, there will always be us.

I want to tell her that I can't pull her down. I want to tell her that she has to let go of my hand in order to swim. I want to tell her that she must live her own life. But I sense she already knows that these options are open to her. And that she, too, has made her choice.

The words fire from my mouth like bullets, ricocheting off the walls before I can even register what I'm saying.

The sight of such aching beauty would infuse his soul with pain.

I might appear confident and chatty, but I spend most of my time laughing at jokes I don't find funny, saying things I don't really mean - because at the end of the day that's what we're all trying to do: fit in, one way or another, desperately trying to pretend we're all the same.

This whole time, my whole life, that harsh, stony path was leading up to this one point. I followed it blindly, stumbling along the way, scraped and weary, without any idea of where it was leading, without ever realizing that with every step I was approaching the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. And now that I've reached it, now that I'm here, I want to catch it in my hand, hold onto it forever to look back on - the point at which my new life really began.

I love you in–in every kind of way.’ ‘I feel like that too . . .’ His voice is shocked and raw. ‘It’s – it’s a feeling so big I sometimes think it’s going to swalow me. It’s so strong I feel it could kil me. It keeps growing and I can’t – I don’t know what to do to stop it. But – but we’re not supposed to do this – to love each other like this!