The moment I step into the screened-in porch, something inside me loosens. Two chairs hug a propane fire pit, and two chairs face a sloping terrace, seen through the screens, open to the mid-morning breeze. The metal chairs are filled with overstuffed cushions that feel as good as they look. The screens are a little dusty in the corners, which doesn’t bother me, and the plants along the walls are healthy and green. Suddenly, my shoulders drop as if the room knows me and has been waiting for me to enter.

I breathe deeply and let it go.

I slip off my shoes, sit in the chair to the right, and stretch my legs until my feet rest on the wainscot. The wood is cool under my heels. My feet are dirty from walking outside, and the chipped paint on my toenails looks like a map of all the places I have visited this morning. My five miles are in, up and down the hills with barely a straight-away. I am anxious to rest. Here, on the porch, nothing bothers me. This porch forgives everything. It holds me the way a familiar song holds a memory, sweet and innocent. Filled with promise.

My friend sits across from me. His feet are up on the wainscot, too. They are just as dirty as mine. We look like two kids who wandered in from the yard and forgot to clean up. We laugh about nothing. We grow quiet without effort. The silence feels like a soft blanket, keeping my fear at bay. I love ordinary moments like this. They are rare in a world that keeps trying to pull me into storms I never asked for, and for the love of God, never wanted. Yet, I grow, each time I fall, I get up and try again.

My life has been loud. It has been full of sharp turns, thorns, and sudden drops. I have known drama that has left me tired in ways sleep could never fix. When I sit here and feel the calm settle into my bones, I know I am touching something sacred. Peace is not a luxury. It is a need. It is a truth I did not understand when I was young.
​
As I sit and watch the hummingbirds, I realize there is very little left in life that I want other than health and happiness for my family. Open communication is one. Devotion. Love. I want the kind of honesty that does not shake when the storms rage.

There is no room for lies on this porch. The screens let the breeze in, and they keep the falsehoods out. Only truth can breathe here. Truth is more valuable than gold or bank accounts. Truth is the only thing that does not crumble when life gets heavy.

I finally understand that trust is the foundation of everything. Without trust, you have nothing. Without trust, love cannot grow. Love cannot survive inside a lie. It wilts. It breaks. It becomes something twisted and small. I do not want that kind of love. I want the kind that sits across from me with dirty feet and an open heart.

​The kind that laughs with me and keeps me warm.
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I've loved you since that first day. You ran up to my ship, a big grin plastered on your face, saying how much you loved strong women. I wasn't sure whether that was a compliment, but I took it as one, even as my son's head popped up from the engine area and said, "Can I help you?"

My heart flipped over as you walked away, and I wondered if I'd see you again. There was a thump in my chest that let me know I was still alive. I wasn't sure if I wanted that experience again, but it didn't matter. It came, and it stuck. 

It has been years now, and I wonder if you know that you walk beside me, invisible but very much alive in my mind. I have made you my confidant. I tell you things I share with no one else. I hear you speak, I feel you move through my thoughts as if my brain is a room we both share. I have no idea if you feel the same way, but I've found it fascinating that I can have a love affair without the other person ever knowing. 

When we do meet, we talk about the weather, the seasons, anything generic and non-emotional. Yet, your laughter lives in me, your smile and happy crinkled eyes, fill my heart.  I notice everything about you. I feel you even when you are not there. 

Years have passed. I date no one. Friends ask why. I shrug. I act like I am waiting for something else. Something better. Something real. But the truth is, I am waiting for you. I am a one heart woman. Once my heart is given it cannot be taken back.  Love will live in me until death, even if I don't want it to.  

Sometimes I wish I hadn't met you. 

We never kiss. We never touch in a way that means anything. Our hands brush when we walk, and we both pull away too fast. It is fear. It is habit. It is the strange comfort of a love that never has to risk becoming real. Reality means blended families, truth, responsibility, accountability.  

People say we would make a good couple. I laugh it off. I act surprised. He says nothing. I say nothing. We keep our silence like a pact.

We grow older. Our hair changes. Our faces change. My life does not. I stay single. I stay close. I stay quiet. The world moves around me, but I remain in place. Frozen in time. 

When he passes from life, I feel the moment his mind leaves mine. It is a sudden emptiness. A door closing. A light going out. I sit down on the floor because my legs stop holding me. I don't cry, at first. I only listen to the silence where he used to be. Who will give me advice? Who will direct my feet, my heart, my mind?

When I die, I hope he feels me again. I hope he knows I loved him. I hope he knows he lived in my head for a lifetime. I hope he knows I never let anyone else in.

I may never have said a word about my feelings.

​But it was still love.

*Artwork made with AI

​I met him on an ordinary afternoon. The kind of day that should have gone unnoticed. Yet, the moment my eyes met his, something stirred. It wasn’t dramatic, not the thunderbolt people write about. It was quieter, deeper, like a memory surfacing from a place I didn’t know existed, and it consumed every part of me.

I passed him by and kept walking, my breath catching for at least another mile. My mind was lost in thoughts of him. He was somewhere behind me, and I hadn’t done anything to further the connection. Should I go back? Would I know if he felt the same? No, of course not, I told myself firmly. That's silly. Imaginative. Yet, the stranger remained in my thoughts.

I didn't imagine his smile, and it wasn't because he was handsome, though he was. As silly as it sounded, I knew him intimately and had known him deeply for ages. Perhaps for eons.

It wasn’t the same feeling I got around a coworker, a friend, or even a boyfriend. I knew this stranger as well as I knew my own heart. I could feel his thoughts in my head; I knew his hands all the way down to the scar from a skin cancer surgery. I knew him.

By the time I got home, I was terrified. I paced my bedroom, down the hall, into the kitchen, my heart pounding with every step. This wasn’t like me. I am calm and levelheaded; I plan everything, and I never give in to reckless impulses. Not ever. A restless night followed me into the morning. Should I go on my morning walk? Will he think I'm stalking him? 

Arguing with myself, I let my practical side take over and put on my tennis shoes. Taking a deep breath to calm my nervous stomach, I headed out of my apartment toward the park. Before I had a chance to think, he was there. Leaning against a stop sign, as if waiting for me. He smiled, and I felt my breath catch again. I kept my pace steady and approached him.

​"Jeanine," I said, extending my hand. "And you are?"

“David."

Our flesh collided, universes were born, Novas appeared. I knew then and there he felt it too. He was waiting for me; I had no doubt. He didn't say a word. He didn't have to. Something shifted in the air. I felt a hum that sprang from me into him, carrying stories that stretched back over a thousand years. We talked for a few minutes, shy and hesitant. I wasn't sure what to say or how to handle the situation. The conversation lasted a lifetime. Finally, we parted.

As I walked away, I pressed my hand to my chest, confused by the ache blooming there. I know him, I thought again. The idea made no sense, but it felt truer than anything I'd ever believed. The world had taught me caution: judge quickly, assume the worst before daring to hope. Instead, I built a story around him, full of assumptions, fears, and others’ opinions. I convinced myself he wasn’t who my heart insisted he was.

The next day, we met again. By then, I'd called every friend I had, and I listened to their advice. I paid careful attention to David's words. He said simple things, but I heard complex meanings. He showed kindness, but I looked for hidden motives. His sincerity? I called it charm. I started seeing him through the lens the world had handed me, not the one my soul recognized.

What could have been a beautiful love story turned into chaos and doubt. I knew he felt the connection too, and that unsettled both of us in ways we couldn’t explain.

We drifted in and out of each other's lives, like two stars in the same orbit. Never quite colliding. Years went by. Every person or potential partner I dated ever lived up to the David in my heart. He was always there, quietly present. No one matched the memory I carried, and eventually, I stopped dating altogether. No one made me smile as he had. No one made me laugh so freely.  

I suffer from a crippling shyness. I bush. I stammer. I bail quickly when I am somewhere uncomfortable. Because these feelings were new to me, I tried to build a life without him. I tried to create something real. But every relationship felt like wearing someone else’s coat. It was close, but never truly comfortable. No one matched the memory of someone I’d never been with.

Yet, time kept bringing him back. It wasn’t regular or predictable. Still, it was enough that we couldn’t pretend the connection had faded. Every few months, I would see him. An unexpected message, a chance encounter, a shared event, a friend's barbecue.

"David," I said. "How have you been?"

"Good," he replied, with a mouthful of hamburger. He blushed.

The electricity was still there. I blushed back. He stammered, and I hesitated. It was the same ancient recognition. And in that moment, something shifted. I went home that night wondering: Am I running from something I am meant to face? Am I wrong about him? What if my heart has been right all along? Why am I so afraid?

I realized that living in silence hurt more than speaking up.

So, I reached out. I didn’t make a grand declaration. I just faced it honestly. I ignored the warnings of the world and my own uncertainties. I listened to the part of me that recognized him. The part that knew him before I understood why.

Suddenly, everything made sense: the familiarity, the longing, why no one else ever measured up, and why my heart whispered his name even when my mind refused to hear it. I realized I was afraid of what he represented. A love too big, too deep, too destined to be controlled.

That kind of love takes courage.

Another barbecue, two glasses of wine, and he stopped by to say hello. We stood in the garden, beside my best friend’s rosebushes, my favorite spot.

"How are you?" he asked.

I told him the truth. I told him I had felt a connection from the start, that I knew him before I knew him. I wasn’t afraid of him, but of how he made me feel.

For the first time, I moved closer to him. He didn't speak at first, just stepped nearer, giving me a moment to change my mind. When he touched my hand, just a gentle brush, a door unlocked. A story resumed, two halves joining again. No fireworks. No dramatic speeches. Just a quiet, overwhelming certainty.

We chose each other. Not because we were perfect, not because fate forced us, but because we finally accepted the truth our hearts had known all along. And once we did, everything else fell into place almost effortlessly.

Love no longer felt like a risk.

​His sigh answered mine as he enveloped me in a gentle hug. We didn’t say a word, but at last we were at peace, and at home in each other's arms.