I can tell by the way you incline your head, the fluidity of your movement, the little constant grin on your lips which lies in wait to blossom like spring for someone else, that you belong to her now.

I can see by the triumphant flick of scarlet hair, the deafening secrecy firing from her eyes like cancer, your fingers twined with hers or around her small frame, that she is the only one who will ever belong to you.

It's evident from the furrow of her perfect brow that she knows it. She shoots me toxic glances that quickly deplete my well-being. The glint in her eyes shows a special circle of hell whose punishments are reserved solely for me, charcoal-dark with a radioactive leak of slight malicious red-orange glow from a deep hellish furnace, my furnace.

But the face she turns to you is free of disease and promises of blistering fate. Her eyes, the same that just bought me an extraordinary cell of ceaseless horror, reveal paradise for you. There are guiltless blue skies and the fragrant breezes of summer evenings, picnics by the river, and adventures with future children. Your in-laws will love you just as much as she does. As much as I have.

She is showing you all the wondrous prizes you'll get if you choose her, like the strangest game of The Price is Right ever played, even though we all know you will. You have. You already had, before even you knew it. I always knew I would lose you. You were never wholly mine, though it went unsaid between us. It was my own fault: I wanted to be more than what we were, what we ever could have been. But it's over now, for you. You've made your choice.

I remember your voice sliding down the line: If I know what love is, it is because of you, you said to me, quoting Hesse and feeling smug. And it was true, then. You did love me, as best you could, but it was never the same way, the way I wanted to love you. Not long thereafter you said, I'm sorry, it's her, and you flew like a little bird from its home into rapturous flourishing life, and I went on collecting hair and hay to build my nest a higher wall.

There was always bound to be a tear in the thin bridge, like weak linen, we'd tried to fabricate between us, knowing it could barely weather the smallest storm, the slightest squall. She was a tempest, all furious hair and devious smiles, and our tie had no hope. I built my half on flat land with armored with wire cables, and it was not the faulty piece, but yours, a frail contraption no man would dare walk across. Its only redeeming qualities were its tremendous ethereal beauty and the earnest eagerness in which it was built.

I can tell, by the ease of your laughter, the fluidity of your movements, the deafening secrecy firing from her eyes like cancer, that your bridge and hers is stone reinforced with steel. It will straddle that wild river without end.

And I can tell, by the charcoal-dark glint in her eyes, the tightness with which she holds you, the determination she has in capturing your attention, that she will never forgive me. Not because I love you or because she worries you care more for me than you do her, but because you loved me first. On the opening page of the manuscript that is the history of your heart, my name is first.

If I know what love is, it is because of you, you whispered.