From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

Worrying about what other people were doing was a waste of time and energy;

No one did anything with their lives if they spent it comparing themselves to other people.

But it was when you started taking the most basic things for granted that life decided to teach you that you’re an ungrateful idiot.

You are who you are in life, and you either live that time trying to bend yourself to make other people happy, or… you don’t.

Sometimes it’s easy to take something so essential to your existence for granted.

Of course I could do it. I just didn’t know if I wanted to. I’d never been a good actress. I had never seen a point in pretending to feel something that I didn’t, or like someone I couldn’t stand.

he knew he had a reason to be in a bad mood. Work in the mine all day and then have to take care of some girl that didn’t do anything.”

But facts tho! Grumpy had a point!

“It’s my goal. For once, I can be someone’s favorite.”

I understand

“I wanted you to be my partner for years, dumbass. When Karina had told me you were thinking about switching to pairs, I had thought you would say something to me, even in passing as a joke. I thought you would say you were going to kick my ass, and I had planned on talking to you over it. But you never did. The next thing I knew, you had a partner. Some dipshit that wasn’t half as good as you.”

“Vanya and his rescues. Always taking the things other people don’t want anymore, ever since he was a little boy.”

“I believe in you. In us. Regardless of what happens, you will always be the best partner I’ve ever had. You’ll always be the hardest working person I’ve ever known. There will only ever be you.”

Love to me was honesty. Being real. Knowing someone’s best and worst. Love was a push that said someone believed in you when you didn’t. Love was effort and time.

I loved him. I loved this man so much that losing him was going to break my cold, dead heart into so many pieces I was just going to have to stick them in the same box I kept my dreams and carry it around with me forever. I didn’t want someone to pat my cheek and tell me everything was going to be okay. I wanted this man who would never take my shit, who would never let me quit, and I had a feeling would never quit on me. Not ever. Not if I screamed, not if I kicked, not if I told him to go eat a thousand mounds of shit. This was my partner. This was more than my partner. He was my other half.

Whatever happens, he mouthed to me. But then his lips kept forming words. Three words exactly. I love you.

“I love you so much I spend all day with you, and it still isn’t enough for me,” he kept going. I stopped breathing. “I love you so much, if I can’t skate with you, I don’t want to skate with anyone else.” Holy. Fuck. “I love you so fucking much, Jasmine, that if I broke my ankle during a program, I would get up and finish it for you, to get you what you’ve always wanted.”

“You mean so much to me that that’s why whatever happens doesn’t really matter to me. Not like it used to. Not like it ever will again,”

“You’re not ever going to be anyone else’s partner. Not while I’m alive, Meatball. I will drag your stubborn, beautiful ass kicking and screaming back to me because nobody else will ever be good enough for you.”

“Because I’m okay with you having ten other people be your favorite. But you’re always going to be my favorite person,” he finished. “Always. No matter what.”