10 Things I Will Do If I Love You

1. When the sun starts coming in through the window, somewhere between 6 and 7 AM, and I worry that the light will be too strong against our faces, I will roll over and go back to sleep. I won’t duck into the bathroom to make myself seem fresh and well-rested, because I’ll know that you still want me when I’m tired and messy.

2. If we both look down at the last slice of pizza, and know that we both want it, I won’t let you have it — because I love you, but I still love myself, too — but I will offer to cut it in half. I’ll lovingly take out that knife and slice it right down the middle, a perfect representation of all the things I want to share with you, 50/50. (But if you offer it all to me, I’ll definitely take it, so don’t do that.)

3. Around your friends, I’ll come alive. I won’t be afraid to be the person I am — to make silly jokes, to laugh a bit too loud, to eat a big plate of curly fries all by myself — because I’ll know that’s what you want. Your friends will see me through the prism of your affection, and they’ll want to get to know me because you’ve told them how wonderful I am.

4. When I’m with you, I’ll actually feel like the word “wonderful” might really apply to me.

5. When my friends ask me to tell them about you, I won’t know what to say. I’ll be caught between “He’s smart” and “he’s so handsome” and “he’s funny,” and none of them will seem like enough somehow. I’ll talk for hours about the way you laugh when you watch that one movie you love so much, and I’ll see their faces grow disinterested, but I won’t be able to stop myself.

6. Once in a while, I’ll sit you down in front of my computer and say “you have to see this,” and show you some weird thing on the internet that I really love and think is hilarious. I’ll watch your face intensely to see the reaction, and wait for the best parts, and maybe even mouth along the words. But I’ll do it because I trust that you won’t find me strange, and that you’ll get me enough to laugh when the funny parts come on.

7. If they’re comfortable, and I know they will be, I will slowly start to steal your clothes and integrate them quietly into my wardrobe. Your t-shirt will become my nightgown, your button-down the perfect thing to wear with leggings, your sweater my favorite way to keep myself warm when we’re curled up watching a movie. You’ll ask me why I took it, and I’ll say it’s comfortable, but I won’t know how to say that they smell like you — and that it feels like keeping a bit of you with me at all times, even when you’re not around.

8. When my friends ask me where I’ve been the past few weeks, because the two of us have disappeared together into our own world, I’ll say that I’ve been busy. And I will feel badly that I haven’t seen them enough, but I won’t feel like I wasted my time. With you, there will never be that fear of missing out on something better that usually cripples my decisions.

9. When the two of us are sitting in your apartment — you on your side of the room, me on mine — nothing will feel more intimate. You’ll be reading a book, and I’ll be typing away on my laptop, and we’ll both have something warm to drink, and nothing will need to be explained or complicated for us to understand. Even without speaking, we’ll be able to convey that we are present and happy, and we can recharge our batteries when we are in the same room.

10. If I love you, I’ll roll over to you when you’re deeply asleep and tell you so, too quietly for you to hear. And I’ll put myself into the crook between your arm and your chest, and listen to your heartbeat, and close my eyes even if I’m not tired. And I’ll wonder how I ever fell asleep when I wasn’t in that very spot, listening to that very heartbeat.