let me tell you a story about the boy I fell in love with.

His voice whispers, gentle, sort of like the splatter of freckles along his nose. His eyes are seaweed green and they widen when ever you talk to him. He bites his lip, and he stutters, fidgeting, and further disrupting the tangled mess of black hair that flops around his eyes as he chokes out a name.

He smiles alot. He has a soft smile, and most of it's in his eyes, or the way his shoulders lift in a shrug and his nose scrunches a little. I smile when I see him smile, and he smiles more when he sees me smile, and somehow we get trapped in this endless cycle of gradually widening smiles and twinkling eyes and racing hearts. He waves goodbye. It's a smaller wave than the one he gives me at hello, its more timid, its gentle.

The first time I hear him laugh I almost cry at the sound. It's so free, when everything I've heard him say before sounds so practiced, rehearsed. And my heart breaks, because when he laughs, you can see the boy hiding beneath his shy waves and timid smiles.

The first time he makes me laugh my heart soars so high that my chest tightens, trying to keep it contained. I learn he really loves to make me laugh.

After that I start to learn alot about him.

I learn that his palms are always a little clammy.

I learn that he got his eyes from his father and his smile from his mother.

I learn he really loves strawberries.

I learn that he tastes like green jolly ranchers and smells a little like sunshine .

Eventually I learn that he loves me. It's tucked between a hesitant breath and one of those smiles I adore, and he smiles a whole new kind of smile, when my eyes drip tears as I tell him that I love him too.

I learn how green his eyes are when he cries,

and how strong he is in black.

I learn that he really hates funerals,

and that he misses his mother's brownies.

Years later I learn he bought a ring.

He waves at me when he see's me at the end of the aisle. His vows are whispered to me gently, eyes greener than green drink me in, and his nose scrunches when I say "I do".

I learn he is the worlds best father, and that our little girl has his laugh.

I learnt alot about him over the life we shared, but he only ever taught me one thing.

He taught me how to love.