I never kissed you. That is probably my greatest regret. I will never know what it would have felt like to kiss you. I'll never know the texture and taste of your lips, the whisper of your breath on my neck, the scent of you so close to me. I'll never know how it would have felt to be in your arms.
The first stars are appearing above me; pinpricks in the vastness of the evening horizon. A legacy to the vastness of space; a testament to the eternity, yet simultaneous mortality of the universe. I feel as though they are taunting me. They are born and they die, like everything else in the galaxy, yet they remain forever somehow. It seems to me that our love is the same – forever, yet long gone.
I remember how you used to look in the twilight on New Earth – with the stars shining in your eyes, your hair dancing in the breeze, your voice warm and comforting as you pointed out the constellations you'd discovered and named, and telling me the stories you created for them. Even then, I knew we had something special. Even then, I knew it was love.
But I was too cowardly to tell you. I made excuses and convinced myself they were reasons, but the truth of the matter is, I was afraid. Afraid of losing you. Afraid of being hurt. Afraid of admitting that you were the other half of my soul only to have that half of me torn away by the cruelty of the universe. I know now, older and wiser as I am, that I shouldn't have worried. I needn't have been afraid. To paraphrase Shakespeare, 'Tis better to embrace love and then lose it, than never to accept it at all, and be the cause of that same loss. I told myself loving you would bring pain, but I know now that it was losing you that hurt most of all. If I hadn't pushed you away, I wouldn't have lost you. I wouldn't have been 'sacrificing the present for a future that might not happen', as you warned me about once. Because celebrating the time we had would have been a much greater comfort than mourning the time we lost because I gave it away. I know now, above everything, that our love would have been all we needed to see us through. In this world of damned and broken souls, of love lost and hopes dashed, I know now, more than ever, that you were enough.