When I see him, my heart doesn't skip a beat, I am overjoyed, ecstatic but not nervous at all
When he sees me, he instantly smiles the most beautiful, wide smile that's making me tear up right now just thinking about it
He holds out his hands and I take them - we never interlock fingers, just palm on palm
I hug him with both hands around his neck, never around his waist and he hugs me with the same intensity every time, even after only a few hours of being apart
His peripheral vision is so bad that I can sometimes look at him for minutes at a time without him noticing - sometimes I like that, other times I don't. What's comforting though is that he always catches me anyway, because he looks at me quite frequently too
We haven't kissed, we haven't said "I love you", we haven't been rushing things which I think is so beautiful
I limit the number of times I confess that I miss him, only because I'm afraid of the same thing happening again - I always seem to want too much
So how is it different?
When he stopped in front of my home at 5am to drop me off, we sat looking at each other and he didn't even attempt to kiss me
We talked about never leaving and about other times we'd spend together and adventures we'd go on
We hugged each other multiple times and he kissed me on the cheek, never did he make an attempt to touch me or to kiss me and I'm glad
I know he wants something more
He waited for my mother to come outside and was exceptionally polite but not in the 'trying-to-make-an-impression' way, he is just simply polite
And I got upstairs at 5:17 and checked my phone only to see his text saying "I'll miss you"
And that's how I know it's different