My lucky stars

I promised myself I won't write about that night-not yet.  The terror is too fresh in my mind to make comfortable prose.  Instead I will try to do something you used to beg me for, write happy thoughts.

I love that you refuse to wear khakis with anything but a button down shirt.  Most guys I know would throw on a polo and dash for the door; You carefully match your belt and your socks before you deem yourself appropriate.
I love the way you kiss my forehead.  Somehow when your lips brush my hair it's so much more intimate then a passionate kiss on the mouth.  When you do that I feel so cared for, so utterly loved.   The same as when you wrap one arm around me and rest your face against my neck. 
I love that you're not perfect.  Your hair has that funny cowlick in the front and sometimes it sticks up at the back of your head.  I might laugh and tease but I hope you never win the battle against those few stray hairs.  I like them that way.
You know just what to say to get me riled up; sometimes you do it just for a good joke.  I'm halfway through defending poor Indonesian orphans before I see the smirk in your eye and realize that I've fallen to your baiting.  I think you like to see my passion sometimes, even if it is sometimes as ridiculous as you claim.  My darling, you may bait me and prod me but I will never be anything but a socialist philanthropy loving liberal. 
I love that gleeful defiant look in your eye when you've done something  that you know I won't approve of.  I can always tell, and I wait for you to pull out the inevitable game or gadget or movie.  Most of the time I can't help but to smile too, if only at your excitement for the new toy.  I love when you completely dork out and go off about tangents that I will probably never understand; I sit there nodding and watching the lights in your eyes. 
Do you remember that chilly night in Meadville, the night that the men in the truck started following us?  I was scared frozen but you told me to run, and we ran and ran across cold lawns, me still in my cocktail dress and you pulling me along.  Later you told me that you were doing your best to think how you could protect me.  I knew I loved you then.
Most of all I love it when you tell me that you love me.  Not the way you say it the little times throughout the day when you want me to stop bothering you while you play the game or before class, but when you actually mean it.  When you look in my eyes and use my full name, "I love you Emily Anna Doherty."  You look at me like I'm amazing and I believe it. 

I love you, even when you make me so mad that I want to cry.  I love you even when  I'm being an infuriating diva.  I love you even when there is a silence between us so thick you could cut it with a butter knife.  I love you always.