Eden is happy. And I can’t express what that does to me. How light it makes me feel. “I like seeing you happy,” I say. He smiles, but then it fades. “I fuckin’ love you.” He says it the way he did before, soft and cut with so much feeling, and I think he’ll say it that way every single time. Like it will never be an offhand thought. It will never just be a habit or carelessly said. Like he’ll always mean it. “I love you too.”

