If it's the beaches
If it's the beaches that you want, then you will have them
If it's the mountains, bending rivers, then you will have them
If it's your wish to run away, then I will grant it

[avett brothers]

Wednesday, late at night, in the kitchen. We're making hot chocolate, talking about work. I'm measuring out hot cocoa when he touches my hand. Hey, he says, then folds his arms around me.

In the kitchen of this small, sweet house was where he told me he loved me still, after all this time, two years ago. It was winter then too, the tea kettle just on the verge of singing, the air almost cold enough to see.

This night is cold, too. One hand on my waist, one hand buried in my hair. His voice pitched lower than usual, so soft I would not have heard if his mouth hadn't been just by my ear. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. 

I reach my arms around his shoulders, but he gently untangles himself, walks down the hall. I hear him rummaging, then he reappears, kneels.

Here is what I have learned. Love is choosing not to walk the other direction, turn out the light, let the silence press itself against you. Love is laughing at some jokes and not laughing at others.

No. Not quite right. Again: Love is not being afraid of someone else's anger, or disappointment. Love is not so many things. Love is the knowledge that you have been met.

No. Goddamn platitudes. Here is every single thing I have learned, in summary: If you are fortunate enough to find a good thing, come back.

His hands are calloused. I hid it in my underwear drawer, he says. We laugh as the ring slides quickly over my knuckle; it's too big, like his heart, like my good luck. All these expansive things in this tiny kitchen, in this small Oregon town.

So many different things could have happened, but this one did. Our fortune as fragile as a finger bone, as inevitable as the moon meanwhile rising, as light as his lips against my hand, folded in his.