He (My Lover)

Love is a strange thing. As a kid I never really knew what to make of it, I grew up with parents who were separated and never really hid why they split up. “We just fell out of love.”, they said, to this day I still don’t truly understand what that statement means. What does “falling out of love” even mean? Does it mean you were never really in love in the first place and were just pretending you were? Or does it mean something or someone came in and broke up your love? How do you fall out of love? I don’t know; then again I only found out what love meant recently.

I was out on a very cliché date with my boyfriend. It was raining. We had just come back from an adventure up in the mountains and now we were driving down the almost empty road. We stumbled across an Albertsons in a strip mall. He decided to park there saying "It’s a surprise." He stepped out of the car and he led us inside to the breakfast isle. I stood there confused as to why we were here when he turned to me with a large grin on his face and asked with two bags of mini-doughnuts in both hands, "Glazed or Crunchy?" I tried to pass them off saying I didn't need them and that I was fine without them. He knew I had forgotten to eat that day and he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He had decided in that moment; even at seven at night in the pouring rain, that I needed to eat some doughnuts. He ended up choosing the glazed and we ate them in the car. That night, in his car with doughnut crumbs on his face, I realized how much I loved him. Even though we could have done a million other things, he cared about my health so much that he made sure that I got something to eat that night, even if it was just a bag of mini doughnuts.  

Even now I still appreciate what he did, even if it was such a long time ago and he almost certainly doesn’t remember it. He has moments like that all the time without realizing it. A few months ago is a great example, we were driving and talking. He looked over at me and looked down at my arm, which was starting to form scars from an incident I am not proud of. I didn’t really notice he’d seen them until he pulled over on the side of the road and had us sit in the backseat with me laying down and he had me talk. Just talk about it and let it out. I cried and he listened. After I finished telling him what happened he was silent. I asked him why and his response still makes me amazed at how kind a person can be; “I’m thinking of how I can help and what I can do to make it better.”

Now he still checks up on me to make sure nothing like that happens again. Every day he checks on me, even if it’s simply by holding my hand and asking if I’m feeling well. For that I am thankful, he showed me what it means to be truly dedicated and care about someone. He makes me believe in what love could be. Despite my parents. Despite the 50% divorce rate. Despite the world’s view on young love. Despite everything he shows me what it means to be in love.