#Heart (Hashtag #6)

by Cambria Hebert

“My very existence is about you, baby. Everything else is just details.”

“A lot of people say you stole my heart. You managed somehow to get the heart of a player who would never settle down. But that’s not the truth. The truth is you never had to steal my heart, baby, because I gave it to you. I’d give you anything you ask for, but you ask for nothing. You, with your gentle touch and fierce love of animals. I promise to love you even when you drag home fifty cats and fifty dogs because you couldn’t bear to leave them at the shelter for one more day. I promise to love you even when your hair tries to eat my hand and when my car cries because you’re a terrible driver. I never knew I needed you, Rim, until I saw you that night, soaking wet from the rain, sitting on the floor of the shelter, with a one-eyed cat in your lap. But I do need you. I need you so fucking much. I don’t know how or why you let me in, but thank you. Thank you for making me the luckiest bastard on the face of this earth. I’ll never take you for granted. I’ll love you long after I’m gone. I vow to you here and now, in front of all these strangers…” She laughed. Then she sniffled and a few tears slid behind her glasses. “We’re a team now, and as long as I’m breathing, you’ll never be alone in life, not ever.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time reading in my life. You know I like my books. I always read nonfiction. I never had time for fairy tales. But what no one ever knew was sometimes I would sit in the back of a library, in a place where no one would ever see, and I’d read a love story. They were always so epic and so maddeningly impossible, but it didn’t stop a little piece inside of me from wishing for something like that of my own. And then I met you. You were impossible, rude, and way out of my league. You drew attention wherever you went, and I’d spent most my life trying to hide. But there was no hiding from you. I don’t need to read love stories ever again, and not because they’re impossible, but because our love story is the greatest one I’ll ever know. Even when you try to boss me around and insult my driving, my love for you will always win. I promise to love you even when the reporters follow our every move and your mother drives me crazy. I promise to love every quarter of you I unearth, and I vow that nothing and no one could ever make me doubt the man you are. Thank you for turning my life upside down, for not running when I tried to push you away. I swear I’ll never take you for granted, and I’ll give you every piece of me that exists. You’ll never be alone, and you’ll always know you’re loved as long as I walk this earth.”