I learned what made her body writhe. I discovered the things that made her claw at the back of my head, and the things that made her moan. I explored every inch of her body and worshiped her as best as I could, and forced myself to remember that all this was, and could ever be, was a passing fad.

I never let myself ask her again, after that first night, what it was that she felt. I was perhaps afraid that voicing it might corrode the feeling or dim the warmth and above all, I needed to keep that dream alive. I couldn’t bring myself to confess to her just how deep the course of my affections ran, either. The more in love with her I fell, the harder it became to tell her. Perhaps if I felt the things I felt with a little less intensity I might have seized the chance and told her, with as many words as I could sum, just what she meant to me. But I didn’t. Why would I? There was nothing to be gained from such a thing when what we already had was as close to perfection as I would ever know. It was not a time for proclamations of love. Words, however eloquent they might have been, would never have managed to convey what I silently longed to say.

And if I could, I would have paused every moment that we shared and I would have memorized everything about it; the feeling of my mind slowing even as my heart picked up speed, the way our eyes locked, barely inches apart. The heat of her breath on my lips, that first softness as they pressed together. If I could, I would have locked away that euphoria somewhere special to pull it out in time to come and examine it, try to understand that sentiment that came to life only in stolen moments in the dunes, hidden corners of our houses, empty car parks and up against the school bathroom door when no one else was around.

But I knew it was a momentary thing, never enough to be called forever. It would never go hand in hand with the realities that awaited her, and my own unrealities that just wouldn’t fly with anyone.

So, I told myself to remember, as Christmas carols murmured in the distance and it seemed everyone but us was gathered outside the local church. We walked hand in hand in the chilly night and there were snowflakes clinging to her lashes and in the almost silence I whispered to her of Robert Frost and lonely woods and tired, endless nights. Remember this, I told myself, for the rest of your life.

And Connie paused to look at me, eyes welling up with so much awe that I had to stop talking, and in the almost silence of that mid-winter night my chest constricted and my heart inflamed at the sight of everything I held dear in the world, and all I had to lose.