Moment of Truth

We are sitting in a bar, a few drinks down the hatch, just enough to put us both at ease for what is coming next. I watch him as he stumbles and hesitates to find the right words, the words that I already knew were coming. “Hurry up and say it!” I think to myself as I see his brow line begin to shimmer. He’s sweating bullets, quite literally. I take another giant gulp of my beer trying to curb my nerves. I have never longed to hear the word “love” more than I did at that moment. To be honest, love has been a constant fear of mine. I am afraid of commitment and sacrifice and dependency. Somehow, those trepidations seemed to disappear and I was left yearning for his love and to give him mine in return. He scratches his head, his eyes shifting from mine to his hands and back to my eyes again. He carefully opens his mouth and manages to muster out “I’ve known this for a very long time and I know that this feeling is not going to go anywhere. I love you.” As anxious as I was a moment ago, I couldn’t find the words to put together to respond to this nervous wreck sitting next to me. Ok, I'll admit, I was a nervous wreck too. Those three simple words made me tingle down to the core, more so than I have ever felt before. I wanted to say so many things back, I wanted to spill all of my pent up emotions and excitements. But all I could say was “I love you too”. I think that was enough for him because he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face even for a second and neither could I.