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I don't believe in love. I really don't. But if I did…It would be the way she smiles at me with those fathomless eyes, peering up into my own through the shatterproof glass of her flight helmet. It would be how she dances when she's cleaning, how she likes more whipped cream than ice cream on her sundaes, how she can't pass a begging child on the street without handing over the entirety of her practically non-existent salary. It would be the thrill of her touch, the caustic bite of her curses, the laughter that she alone can coerce from me. Her refusal to lose a battle, the terrifying flash of determination on her hardened face when pushed to the breaking point, her ability to be, in nearly the same moment, incredibly fierce to her foes and yet so sweetly gentle towards me. It would be the life-stealing illness she just will not give in to, the rusted charm hanging from a cord around her neck, the rips in her flight suit and the scuffs on her knee-high leather boots. The way she keeps so busy that I have to remind her to sleep, how she fidgets uncomfortably when wearing an elegant dress but manages to glow like a goddess in my long T-shirts, her dislike of anything overly feminine, high-class, and pretentious, her (highly mistaken) believe that she is not worthy of the gifts I try to give her. It would be the deep white slash marks on her arms, the blue-black bruises on her back, scars she reveals only to me in the characteristic moments of darkness and doubt that plague her eternal optimism. It would be how she casts her eyes to the ground and blushes furiously when complemented, the protective love with which she showers her younger brothers and baby cousin, the way she urges me to just ignore those who made her life hell for so many years. Midnight picnics on star-lit rooftops, breaking into forbidden landing platforms, sledding down snow-covered mountains, swimming in waterfall-fed pools. It would be the glee with which she faces danger, the insuppressible, contagious joy leaking from her broken soul, the entirely undeserved forgiveness she continually bestows upon my guilt-wracked heart. Like I said, I don't believe in love. But if I did…
What is love? For a long time, I had no idea. Not personally, anyways. Love was the way Daddy always made hot tea for Mom when she came home from the Senate at three in the morning, that playful look my aunt shot my uncle that caused him to convulse with silent laughter during Council meetings, my twin brother's timid flirting with his tempestuous best friend. I guess you could say I saw love all around me. But what I first felt, what a once-innocent adolescent naively hoped was love, despite the knowledge deep in my heart that it was anything but…Sharp punches to the stomach, blows in the panic-filled night, no safety from his jealous demands even in the once-refuge of my own room, a bloodied body hidden in layers of modest clothes that were never thick enough to sate his need for exclusive possession. And other things, too, grown-up things, desires I neither reciprocated nor understood, yet was forced to comply with…Pain. Nightmares. Pain. Unseen shame, running red down carved wrists. Is it any wonder that I came to fear love? Dateless evenings, long years spent alone, working and training through the intoxication of everyone else's youthful weekends – anything seemed preferable to the soul-shattering "affections" of that first not-really-love. But then…then I met him. And suddenly, I know. I know what love is. It is the special smile he flashes only to me, the fiery emerald eyes capable of lifting one to heaven and beyond, the short dark hair streaked white-blonde. It is the letters sent almost daily, the brief recorded messages rich with respectful tenderness, the thousand-and-one roses decorating my quarters, the stolen kisses and secret glances snatched during debriefings. The way he speaks volumes through those spell-bindingly silent green orbs, how he struggles through med school just to care for a pale, weak, dying young woman in her last days, his unrelenting insistence that I will recover, that he can save me. It is the utterly defiant foolishness with which I am beginning to believe, against all reason and hope, that he actually will. It is living again, as though for the first time, experiencing the everyday as new through his childlike wonderment at what he has never done – games and jokes, concerts and homemade cookies, nights at the movies and dinners with the family he always secretly longed to have. The ballroom dancing lessons, the nervousness in his typically composed demeanor when he asked if I had a boyfriend, the cultural differences that fast fall away in the fires of his hidden feelings. It is how his unshakeable, detached character cracks to reveal the passion buried deep within, the dreams forged in the heat of battle and the quiet of evening walks, plans for an impossible future that he is determined to make real. What is love? So much, and yet so simple, so pure at its very core. It is his messianic power to heal and to save, it is his whisper late at night, it is cultural rivalries and family feuds immediately rendered a thing of the past in the instant that two star-crossed warriors lay eyes on each other. Love. It is him…it is me when I am with him…it is his low, husky please that fateful evening, when he asks me to stay by his side until dawn shines through the window…It is the subtle kicking of tiny feet inside my abdomen that will forever bear witness to our eternal bond.