Different kinds of love can feel different, Jedao muses, but he's not blowing it off, he's trying to give Edwin a real answer. He doesn't say love is when you would make sacrifices for someone, because Jedao would sacrifice himself for people he's never even met. Love is something else; something that gives back to you out of the deep clear well of your own heart, whether you sacrifice or not.
The way I love Hakkai is full of trusting him to be careful with me when I'm fragile, and knowing he understands the things that are most important to me, and wanting to share as much of my life with him as we can, to build things together. I feel safe and wanted and understood and not alone, when he's there.
The feeling of it is steady and wondrous and warm and exhilarating, the regular beat of the waves on a Carribean shore. The water would buoy him up; could surround him and carry him along; is strong and endless and gentle at the same time.
The way I love Eiffel is knowing he won't ever want to hurt me, even if he does by accident sometimes. Knowing he doesn't want to hurt anyone, because he's kinder than I know how to be, and I want to keep that close and learn from it, and be kind to him even when he won't ask for it. It's full of feeling...younger and lighter and more free, free to be silly and enjoy things, when he's there.
The joy of running madly through a summer field, of shrieking and tumbling down a hill, of discovering the precious tiny shine of fireflies, and learning to make wishes on them.
The way I love Norton is just thinking he's...delightful. He delights me, especially when he's not trying to. I love how shameless he is and how petty. When I'm with him, it's not just okay to be self-indulgent, it's good, it's fun. I see him and I'm happy he's alive. I'm happy he's himself.
Cozy and sparkling and easy all at the same time, like laughing around a campfire, like blowing the puffs off of dandelions and watching them fly.
I've loved people who hated me before, Jedao admits, with a soft patter of old melancholy, like the gentle sound of rain outside, the grey-blue like drifting cool through the windows. And it did hurt, but the joy was still there, that they were themselves, that they existed in the world, even if they weren't for me. I think that's the core of what love is. Being glad to know someone exists, that they are who they are not and not someone else, thinking the world is so much richer and better because they are. I like John very much, but I'm also so glad you are you and not John. I think I'm very lucky I get to meet you. I'm so lucky I get to watch you grow.
Jedao tries to keep the volume turned down low on all the flavors of love he's trying to show Edwin, enough to notice and understand what he means without being overwhelmed by it. It's harder to do with the love he feels for Edwin, who's right there, for whom he feels so ferociously protective, and so unbearably tender, wanting to squish him so tight to Jedao's chest that he never knows what it's like to not be wanted again, like holding a bristling two-week-old kitten in the palm of one hand.
we've all been there
The way I love Hakkai is full of trusting him to be careful with me when I'm fragile, and knowing he understands the things that are most important to me, and wanting to share as much of my life with him as we can, to build things together. I feel safe and wanted and understood and not alone, when he's there.
The feeling of it is steady and wondrous and warm and exhilarating, the regular beat of the waves on a Carribean shore. The water would buoy him up; could surround him and carry him along; is strong and endless and gentle at the same time.
The way I love Eiffel is knowing he won't ever want to hurt me, even if he does by accident sometimes. Knowing he doesn't want to hurt anyone, because he's kinder than I know how to be, and I want to keep that close and learn from it, and be kind to him even when he won't ask for it. It's full of feeling...younger and lighter and more free, free to be silly and enjoy things, when he's there.
The joy of running madly through a summer field, of shrieking and tumbling down a hill, of discovering the precious tiny shine of fireflies, and learning to make wishes on them.
The way I love Norton is just thinking he's...delightful. He delights me, especially when he's not trying to. I love how shameless he is and how petty. When I'm with him, it's not just okay to be self-indulgent, it's good, it's fun. I see him and I'm happy he's alive. I'm happy he's himself.
Cozy and sparkling and easy all at the same time, like laughing around a campfire, like blowing the puffs off of dandelions and watching them fly.
I've loved people who hated me before, Jedao admits, with a soft patter of old melancholy, like the gentle sound of rain outside, the grey-blue like drifting cool through the windows. And it did hurt, but the joy was still there, that they were themselves, that they existed in the world, even if they weren't for me. I think that's the core of what love is. Being glad to know someone exists, that they are who they are not and not someone else, thinking the world is so much richer and better because they are. I like John very much, but I'm also so glad you are you and not John. I think I'm very lucky I get to meet you. I'm so lucky I get to watch you grow.
Jedao tries to keep the volume turned down low on all the flavors of love he's trying to show Edwin, enough to notice and understand what he means without being overwhelmed by it. It's harder to do with the love he feels for Edwin, who's right there, for whom he feels so ferociously protective, and so unbearably tender, wanting to squish him so tight to Jedao's chest that he never knows what it's like to not be wanted again, like holding a bristling two-week-old kitten in the palm of one hand.