He likes it when I fall asleep on him; the way my hair sweeps underneath his chin. On a couch or a movie theater. He traces my jaw line while I sleep, and when I’m awoken from my slumber, he tilts his head towards me, and I discover even more shades of lustrous brown in his eyes. The only time he moves away is to bring me closer, in a way that allows him to wrap his arms around my waist even tighter. I listen to his heartbeat, and it reminds me that I’m alive – and safe. Frightened that I know we cannot stay in this pose forever, but secure in knowing that there’s nowhere he’d rather be than right here with me. His skin smells like soap, and I can’t help but imagine what temperature the water is when he’s showering. His skin is a few shades darker than mine, and softer. The colors look absolutely beautiful together. They match.

And then his breaths fall deeper, and his lips are so warm, and his hands move in the most subtle and incredible way against my thigh and his demeanor is so graceful, and his eyes are shut gently, and the silence is the most comfortable and forgiving… and he tells me he loves me. And I know he means it. My breath is let out through my nose, and I’m gasping for air. I’m shocked every time. He says he’s glad I’m his, and I laugh. I laugh because I don’t know any other way to express the happiness that I feel, and I feel it because he is my best friend. I tell him a joke about a moth, and now it’s his turn to laugh. He laughs at me, not the joke. He’s laughing because I still think it’s funny, even after the twelfth time of telling it. Then we’re back on the couch watching a movie. He talks to me about his day, and asks about mine. He loves how I don’t know when to shut up, even during his favorite scene in the movie. And when I catch my tongue, he asks me to continue. “Keep talking, you have a beautiful voice. It’s sweet to me.” He says with that beautiful smile. I wonder how it could possibly be so perfect; he never even had braces. I get up for a drink and trip over my own foot. He sees me curse at myself, and he’s right there, carrying me to the kitchen, rescuing his “damsel in distress.”

He gets himself a salad, and brings me a plate of Buffalo wings. Then he runs his fingers along the scar on my knee. He knows the story behind that scar, as I know the story behind the one on his forehead between his arched eyebrows. Now we’re at the park. While he competes with his friends who can jump the farthest off the swings, I watch from the sidelines as his own personal cheerleader. His best friend has his arm around me and says, “That boy friggin’ loves you.” I know that already. I love him, too. Because I know that his idea of good food is Taco Bell, that his only two pairs of shoes he owns will never match his shirt, and that his biggest fantasy is to some day become Spiderman.