Those three words.
You know the ones I'm speaking of. Those three little words that can make or break you. It could all end right now, in a one-four-three sequence.
Oh how I've lived the past year in fear of those three words, especially the middle.
I doubted my heart had ever felt them, though I'd claimed it before. I made the past cease to exist, for we do not love at such an age. That's unthinkable...
Correct?
I don't know anymore. I didn't want to believe in it. I felt foolish to think I had ever considered myself a part of that generation.
The hand-holders. The dreamers. The lovers.
I am far too realistic for such things.
Logic shall divide and conquer, and in the wake I'll always take what's left. It's been knowledge first-hand, compassion always, and love took a back seat.
Chance, luck, fate...they played no part in my life, so why should love? It is just as foolish as any of the former.
But then, it strikes. When you don't want it to. When I didn't want it to. When I've been denying its existence all along.
And I'll continue to deny, to live in fear, to cringe at the words and end every conversation in an awkward silence.
I'll break your heart with my silence, but the truth is...
I'm breaking my own. Dying to say those words, because I can finally feel.
This thing that everyone's talking about.
Silenced by my own fear.
Be still my heart; you're not ready for this sort of thing.

And now it stands here, before me, reaching out to take my hand.
It was not so long ago I shrank before it, ran away, bared my teeth and cried out. Now I dare say, I need it.
I need you.
I didn't want to speak too soon. I wanted to assure myself that this was real, that this was a conceivable notion.
I held my thoughts on trial, like a criminal awaiting the verdict, because that's what they were to me;
Immoral. Wrong. Treasonable to everything I told myself that I believed in.
But you've become more than I could have ever guessed. My poor stone heart, warmed to the touch, and burst;
it had been too small to contain the feelings that had suddenly been compelled into existence.
My life you have changed, and my being as well. My existence has been proven all the better.
And I love you for it.