“I know I can never say it enough how sorry I am for what happened and how I handled things. But I need you to know that it’s always been you, Cash. From the moment we kissed in Portland outside of that bar—hell, if I’m being honest with myself, it was before that even—it’s been you who I’ve wanted. No one can make me feel the way you make me feel. Nothing has ever felt as right as when we’re together. You’re a part of me I didn’t know was missing until I lost you.”

My vision blurs with unshed tears, and there’s a golf ball size lump in my throat, making it hard to swallow. He continues, even as emotion fills his own eyes, never looking away from mine.

“I want to stare up at the stars with you on warm summer nights and sip hot chocolate by the fire with you on cold winter days. I think my soul recognized you right away. It knew. It knew you were it for me, and no matter what chaos we went through, no matter what fires we had to overcome, it would always lead me back to you, because souls don’t meet by accident. I firmly believe that. I love you wildly. And I think I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, I just didn’t know it.”

Tears pour down his face in steady streams as mine spill over too, soaking the pillow below me. The hand he has rested on my hip is keeping me grounded. An electrical current charges through his body and into mine with his words, but also with his touch. I feel—not just hear—everything he’s saying. It’s washing over me in thick waves, and I don’t know how to process it, so I don’t say anything. Instead, placing a quick teary kiss to his lips before I let him continue.

“I’ve never felt as lost as I did when I left you. After the dust settled with everything that happened that had caused me to leave, I felt cut open. A detrimental chunk of myself was missing. It was always you. You were the chapter I didn’t know existed, the chapter I didn’t know the words to, not until I lost you. I was homesick for so long, but it wasn’t a place I was missing. It was you.”