“You’re so beautiful,” John would text me out of nowhere in the middle of the day.

A smile would bloom on my face.

I’d blush. I’d feel this heat in my chest and this wonderful, terrible hope growing in me. I’d feel myself start to fall…

“I could fall in love with you,” he whispered after the first time we “made love,” “had sex,” “hooked up.”

Whatever you want to call it, it was amazing.

I wanted him from the very first moment we met, but I made him wait. I wanted him to feel like he “earned” me.

But it was our fourth date and we were kissing on the couch…

And I inhaled the good masculine smell of him and felt the strength in his arms…

And I felt so safe and protected and desired…

And afterwards we lay there tangled in each other.

He ran his fingers through my hair…

As I lay my head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat, I let myself believe in some way that maybe, just maybe, it was beating for me…