My friends always told me that you never did “enough.” You weren’t fond of the grand gestures we saw in the movies, you never cared for the public professions of love we always saw in YouTube videos. You never quantified your love with a thousand roses, never demonstrated it through poetic verbiage.

“How are you supposed to know what he feels?” they’d ask me. “How do you know he feels anything at all?”

It’s hard to explain that love isn’t a measurable unit. It’s hard to explain that I’ve never needed it to be.

Because I love you for the little things.

I love you for the way you make me breakfast without me asking, how every morning you leave out a mug of coffee just for me.

I love you for the way you look at me attentively every time I speak, fully immersed in what I have to say.

I love you for taking pictures of me when I’m not looking and for the awkward way you try to pretend that you weren’t when your camera’s flash unexpectedly goes off.

I love you for playing my favorite songs when we’re in the car together and making terrible jokes every time we’re at the grocery store and for making me laugh so hard my stomach aches.

I love you for the way you say my name when you speak to me, like your words belong to no one but me.

It’s strange, because all those little things feel so much bigger than surprises and gifts and proclamations of your feelings. And I’m starting to realize that I don’t care if anyone else knows. I don’t care what anyone else says. Because this is something between you and me, like a secret, like a whisper, and it’s bigger than they could ever understand. No amount of roses could ever compare.

But most importantly, I love you for the way you love me so clearly that I need nothing else to know. All I have are those little things, but I don’t want anything more.