THE MINUTE I KNEW

We locked eyes for the first time this evening, and something changed. Seeing her wasn't like what it had been before. Surely I'd noticed her eyes were a steely blue, and obviously I was aware of the freckles scattered across her nose. It wasn't like her hair hadn't framed her face this way before, or that this was the first time she used makeup that shade of bronze.

We were dating after all, so of course I had seen these things, and it was definitely not the first time she'd stepped into the sunlight just as we'd hit the golden hour. All of these things had happened before, so maybe it was the fact that they were all happening together, while she let out a melodic giggle and squeezed my hand just a little bit tighter; or maybe it was something else. But walking with her, holding her hand right now, talking about nothing and everything with her. It was just too much, she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

And it was then, on that warm summer night, as the breeze picked up her dark hair ever so gently, that I decided I'd never let go. I'd do whatever I could to make sure she was the one I was going to marry. Until then though, I'd just have to settle for kissing her.