Henry exhales. “For so long, I’ve worn the mask of a man who appears to have it all together. I joke. I laugh. I fuck around. I have a good time. I’m a man, who until a couple months ago, thought he knew what happiness was. I have money. Too much of it, frankly. A great job. Good friends. A loving family. And then along came RB, overturning everything I thought I knew about being with someone. You’ve opened my eyes, and my heart, to something I used to think was undesirable and unattainable. I wasn’t just a night of fun or a dick to ride. You cared about me. I never thought such an emotional and powerful force actually existed. But when I see you standing in front of me, I realize it’s you that makes all this exist for me. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been interested in anyone else long-term before. Because they weren’t you.

“I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, honey. And I never will again. It’s scary and exhausting and the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me. You’ve brightened my world and awakened my soul. You deserve the whole fucking universe, Emma, and I want to be the one to give it to you, if you’ll let me. I want to spend every day for the rest of my life, apologizing for my mistakes and working on making it up to you. Whether that’s strictly as colleagues or romantically involved, together as equal halves, it’s up to you. I just want you to know I love you so fucking much.”

Love.

A nearly inconceivable word.

One I never thought Henry was capable of expressing.

“Y-you love me?”

“I do. I’ve loved you for a long, long time, I think. I fell in love with you over emails and text messages. Through every ping of my phone. Every joke and stupid question we exchanged. In the hallway. Across the office. It was a gradual thing. Not skydiving out of an airplane, but more like crossing a long, rocky terrain, building over the last decade and a half, punctuated by the past few weeks we’ve spent together. It took almost losing you for me to finally define the emotions.