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I pull away from his hug only after a long long minute of him holding me tightly. Standing here right now, it makes me wonder why I questioned my love for Connor for even a second. How could I possibly be with anyone other than him? I could never and I so mad at myself for taking this long to realize it.
"You probably have a lot you want to say, or maybe not a lot. Maybe you just want to leave," I stare at the folded clothes on the bed. It's deeply painful to look at. "But you can't leave, okay? You can't leave me even though I know I've been the shittiest girlfriend and human being on the planet for the last month. You cannot leave because I'm so deeply in love with you and I need you in my life for the rest of my life."
"You are the love of my life, Connor. You are my best friend, the person I go to when I need a hug, or when I want to laugh, or cry or smile. You are the person I always go to no matter what and the only person I want to go to for the rest of my life. You never judge me, never treat me bad, and never hurt me. You treat me with such kindness and patience, I swear I don't deserve it," I tell him truthfully. I watch his dark blue eyes carefully, knowing how easily I can get lost in them and yet hoping I don't lose them. "You stayed with my every step of the way. Even when I flinched when you used to touch me in the beginning, and when I was still addicted to my cigarettes, and when I would spend nights crying about a guy that wasn't you. You are the only guy for me and you have done nothing but spend the last six years proving that to me."
"You never gave up on me, not once. You looked at me and saw everything that I am and everything that I could be, and you wouldn't stop pushing me until I could be the best version of myself. I can't even articulate how special of a quality that is and how lucky I am to have someone that did that for me."
I watch him listen to me so attentively. He doesn't even look like he wants to speak, he simply listens to me. He never interrupts me, only watches me intently and listens.
"Even after all these years, I am still as in love with you as I was when you first came up to me at that coffee shop. I didn't know it then, but you would change my life. All these years later and you still make my heart skip a beat when you look at me and I still lose my breath when you kiss me. I am flawed in so many ways and I know that, but you never gave up on me."
"How could I? I am far too in love with you to ever give up on you. You are everything I've ever wanted in my life," He finally says. "But I can't ignore that you hurt me, Joey. You strung me along, and lied to me and left me heartbroken there for a while."
"I thought I wasn't enough for you," He explains to me. "You were figuring out if you still loved the guy that broke your spirit and your heart and your belief in love, while I was sitting here waiting for you. Don't you see how much that hurts?"
I look at him closely -- his features, the softness of his eyes, the shadow of his jaw, the hair falling on his face. I look at him and I wonder to myself how I could ever hurt him. How I could have ever doubted my love for him. How I could have ever looked at him and thought he wasn't enough. How I was ever scared.
