He slid closer to me and tucked me to his side.
There he held me.
I wish I had a picture of the way we looked.
I believed it then - that this was the hardest thing either of us had done or would do in our lives.
I saw it in the way he refused to look at me.
I felt it in the tears that rolled from his eyes to the hair on my head.
I knew then, at the very end of it all, I had found love.
One so great it that it did and forever would rival all others.

I've looked for it since and found with disappointment and drawn out pain. There would be no replacement.

Since then I have learned to invest all that untapped love into something else. I don't know where it's going but every night I send it out into the world hoping that it finds it's way to something greater than myself.

Without the photo I'm not sure some days. My mind often crosses what I so desperately want with what little I can recall. Preserved is either an embellished or blemished memory. One that I treasure and fall asleep thinking of every night.

I think he loved me as much as I loved him.

The lessons that I have learned from that boy created an unstoppable strength inside me. Completely bullheaded and delusional I continue to reach blindly for that spot beyond the moon itself. Back beyond the stars, to what ever it is that is waiting for me.