Unlove's the heavenless hell and homeless home
...lovers alone wear sunlight.

-Unknown

"I love you." I said it aloud to an empty room, testing it and tasting its sweet and sour possibilities in less deserted circumstances. They were beautiful words, lovelier than I'd ever before imagined, and the warning sting they issued fell nearly impotent before their breathtaking power.

My breath actually faltered for a moment, and my heart beat faster to compensate. My brain, too, was rushing along at what seemed to be a thousand miles an hour, rationalizing and reasoning and trying to sort out what had just happened while it'd taken a bit of a break.

I'd had his face before me as I said it, that was its trouble. The mental exercise ceased being one in fantasy, as it'd always been before. I hadn't visualized he and I sitting together under the stars, or on a beach or at a candlelight dinner as I said it, with the real me acting as a third in the scene and directing the motions of the other two. This time, as I spoke, it was me speaking, and he on the receiving end, my darling and sweetheart, without revision, without exceptions or qualifiers.

And I knew, not without a doubt because I can't say that for anything, but with a degree of certainty that can only be described as rare for me, that it was true.

"I love you."

And so, it was, and I did.