(February 10, 2013 – Reflection day)

February 11, 2013 – Word prompt: Shield. Plot Generator – Binding Blurb: In 500 words or fewer, write a blurb or short entry about "love at first sight."

. . .

I can't quite believe he still has it. I haven't read it since the day I yanked it from the refrigerator and tore it in half four times, into sixteen near-perfect squares that did nothing to indicate the riotous haze of staggering fury and heartbreak I was in when I did it. To find it painstakingly taped together and inside another frame, with its accompanying blue ribbon pressed beneath the glass, is as surprising as it is confusing. It's as if Charlie was trying to shield the innocence of young Bella from the jaded and bitter hands of older Bella – as if he's trying to preserve what's left of my more pure heart. The first two words alone are enough to make my breath catch in my throat.

. . .

First love. It's such a beautiful, fragile thing, the first time you give your heart away. It makes you a certain kind of vulnerable, like a foal taking its first steps on shaky toothpick legs. I suppose the key to a first love that sets you on the right path is choosing the person who will help you navigate those early steps, guiding you patiently and gently until you have the confidence necessary to walk on your own stronger legs. And I expect that's what mature love is: being able to walk side by side without having to hold on to each other. Knowing that, without restraining the person you love, he will choose to walk alongside you at the same pace you keep. Knowing that, if one of you needs to slow down, to pause for a moment, the other will wait right there beside you, and perhaps even point out a nearby bloom or a floating butterfly while you catch your breath.

So many people laud the excitement, the thrill, of love at first sight. The concept of knowing with the immediacy of a lightning bolt that you want another person. I don't know anything about that – after all, I'm only sixteen. What I do know is the comparable if not superior value of love at second glance: when someone you have known your whole life suddenly steps into a brighter spotlight. When a person you assumed you knew inside and out opens a door within himself that you'd never noticed, like a small closet beneath the stairs that you walk by without realizing it, and suddenly there are all sorts of new things to discover that you never knew he carried inside him. I think it's a beautiful thing when your first love is with someone who knew you before it even occurred to you to put your best foot forward. When it's a boy who's seen you mad because you lost, crying because you fell, laughing because you managed to blow all of the dandelion fluff off in just one breath. A boy who has bought you Cabbage Patch dolls, puzzles, CDs, and flowers for various birthdays over the years. A boy who throws acorns at your bedroom window when your mother leaves your father for good and somehow forgets to take you with her; a boy who sticks up for you when the prettier, richer, more popular girls at school tease you because your single father has no idea that the unfashionable jeans you're wearing make you a target for ridicule.

It's a beautiful thing, knowing that someone loves you when he knows everything there is to know about you. It makes your heart feel safe in his gentle hands.

People can keep their "love at first sight" dreams; I'll take my love at second glance any and every day.

. . .

Thanks, as always, for reading.

A/N: Three of my favorite quotes about forgiveness:

1. "Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it." (Mark Twain)

2. "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." (Buddha)

3. "I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night." (Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner)