I love you. The words reverberated between them, sinking into their skin, scored onto their hearts as they staked their claims to each other’s bodies, surrendering themselves and possessing each other, a tangle of limbs and lust and love, coiled together into one perfect unit, one small miracle, one simple story that has been told and retold since the beginning of time: just two people meeting, the most extraordinary and wondrous and mundane thing in the world.
Love. He recoiled from the very idea. He knew all about love: love was following his best friend around school like a lost puppy, putting up with all manner of shit just to be near him. Love was sobbing himself to sleep night after endless night because the guy who’d taken his virginity hadn’t called him back. Love was a thousand shattered dreams and a flood of memories that made him cringe. Love could fuck off.