Booktree.ngIt-Starts-with-Us-Colleen-Hoover

because you were the first person I ever wanted to become something
better for.
That was the day we laid on your couch together and you told me
you wanted me to watch your favorite cartoon with you. It was the
first time you had ever snuggled up to me, your back to my chest as
we lay under the blanket with my arm wrapped over you. It was hard
to focus on the television because the words I love you were still
tickling their way up my throat, and I didn’t want to say it, couldn’t
say it, because I didn’t want you to think it was too fast, or that those
words held no weight for me. They were the heaviest damn thing I’d
ever carried.
But I think about that day so much, Lily, and I have no idea if
that’s what love feels like for everyone, like it’s an airplane that just
fell from the sky and crashed right through you. Because most people,
they have love seeping in and out their whole lives. They’re born
being wrapped in it and they go their whole childhood being
protected by it, and they have people in their lives that welcome their
love in return, so I’m not sure it hits people like it hit me—in one
small moment, in such a colossal way.
You were wearing this shirt I loved. It was too big for you, and the
sleeve was always falling off your shoulder. I should have been
watching the cartoon, but I couldn’t stop staring at that stretch of
exposed skin between your neck and your shoulder. As I was looking
at it, I once again felt that incredible pull to say I love you, and the
words were there, right on the tip of my tongue, so I leaned forward
and pressed them against your skin.
And that’s where they stayed, hidden and quiet, until I worked up
the courage to speak them out loud to you six months later.
I had no idea you remembered that kiss, or all the times I kissed
you in that spot after that day. Even when I read it in your journal,
you rushed past it in a hurry to get to what you considered our actual
first kiss, so I had no idea that it even meant anything to you until the
moment I saw your tattoo. I can’t tell you what that means to me,
knowing that you have our heart placed in the very spot where I once
secretly buried the words I love you.
I want you to promise me something, Lily. When you look at that
tattoo, I don’t want you to think about anything other than the words