I love how ambiguous that statement is, but there's just one way I mean it. I mean that everyone else is a distraction. The others, such as they are, are only ways to kill time while waiting for you to come around, so I don't sit around thinking about you all day and writing our love story.

It's a great story, though.

We meet and are kindred spirits. Our stories sound so familiar to each other, bringing us along such similar paths to the time and place where our lives finally intersect. We skip being friends first. We fall into bed and I keep falling, going from blissful indifference to blissful infatuation and back, swimming in a sea of exquisite ambivalence that feels glorious after feeling so little for so long. But when you're with me, everything's crystal clear: all I want to do is hold you and tell you that you are fine, you are just fine, and you should forgive yourself for your mistakes and love yourself anyway. And I'll say I've been there too, where you are and feeling how you're feeling, and that to hear my words (my emotions, my fears) leaving your mouth is like coming home to a place I've never been.

I'm sure they sound awkward to you, my murmured sweet nothings that try to say enough without saying too much. I use words like "adequate" and "sufficient" and I tell you parables about people with the flaws you think you have who come to accept them, or didn't with dire consequences. I pat myself on the back for my ability to choke back more revealing terms of endearment: you feel perfect for me. I wouldn't change you one bit.

All I want to do is keep you in my arms, the nooks and crannies of our bodies finding the counterparts in the other so easily. We fit together so ridiculously well, your heart beating next to mine even though I can never actually feel it. I can't resist the temptation to hold you; all I can do is force myself to let you go long before I want to, hopefully early enough that you can't tell I have to tear myself away. If I ever seem to leave abruptly, now you know why.

I'm the one who cares.

That's the story I'll never tell you. I'll talk about the physical things instead, and how we've managed to become pretty good friends despite everything else along the way. I won't talk too much about "us" and I won't be the one to change what we have. I'll say, "I only like you," and leave it open to your interpretation.