It's hard to conjure a piece of writing dedicated to our relationship and my love for you that doesn't mention our mothers. My vows wouldn't be genuine if I didn't talk about them. And I know this is painful to write, and probably painful to hear, but one of the worst nights of my youth marked the biggest change in our relationship. I never got to share my mother with you, but in another turn events, you shared your father with me.

I've come to reconcile that night, one of the worst incidents of my life, because it brought me closer to you. It took time for me to realize that though.

During my darkest days, plagued with teen angst, when I was older enough to understand the cruelty and injustice of what happened to me, I was resigned to the belief that I was always destined to be alone. My mother was killed in front of me, my father was taken from me. I was sure that this track record would extend to you if I ever pursued you in the way I wanted to. And Iris-I couldn't imagine that. I knew I would never be able to live with that prospect. It was better to keep quiet about what I felt for you forever if it meant you would still be a part of my life. Even if you gave yourself to someone else, no matter how much that might hurt me-the priority was your presence and your friendship. I knew ultimately that was what would make me happy: if you were close to me, and of course, if you were happy to be.

And that's what did keep me happy. It's probably the only thing that did after what happened to my parents, and the only way I survived and kept going. If I found myself slipping into a destructive mindset, if the pain of my past crept up on me, you were always there to keep me in check, you were always there to catch me, you were always there to save me. And it all started with your faith in me, that I wasn't crazy, that what I witnessed that night was valid. Even though it put you in a difficult position of who to choose to believe, me or your father, over and over again, you always chose me.

You were the reason I made it through those dark days Iris. I've sung it before, but I'll say it again: for that, you gave me no other choice but to love you.

But then I hit an obstacle with loving you.

Loving you was easy, but hiding how much I loved you was hard, and watching you love other people was harder, and considering the worst if I told you I loved you was the hardest.

The worst wasn't that you wouldn't reciprocate, but that things would forever change between us if you didn't. Or if you did reciprocate, and we didn't make it, we wouldn't be strong enough to bounce back.

Essentially it was this: that I would lose you.