A million ways to love

There’s no right way to love — she loves me in a million.

Like when she laughs at my shitty jokes, or when, every time I ask, she reminds me of our anniversary while shaking her head and letting out a laugh. She probably thinks it’s another shitty joke. It’s not. I just have a shitty memory.

That’s love.

When she tickles me even though I hate being tickled and she knows how much I hate it but does it anyway, and I laugh. I laugh until my laughter starts to turn into annoyance and I’m seconds away from losing it, and she stops. She stops at the perfect time. We’ve only been together for two and a half years but it’s like she’s known me for lifetimes.

That’s love.

When she says “thank you” for the tiniest littlest things — like when I finally take out the trash after last night’s takeout was spilling over the bin and our apartment was starting to smell like a frat house — and she doesn’t bug me about it. She understands. She even helps me double bag it.

That, my friend, is love.

And every time I open the car door for her, without fail, she kisses me. And she never asks for the aux, and she still vibes to the same songs I’ve been playing since our first date — or at least pretends to. Her backseat driving drives me insane, but when she catches herself, she apologizes and really means it, and I melt. But nothing screams love louder than when she curses at other drivers and their mothers. She’s a ride or die with enough road rage for the both of us.

I love how she loves me.

How she rubs my belly, and wraps her arm around my bicep, and scratches my head, and buries her face in my chest. And how she wakes up in the middle of the night, walks to the living room, finds me uncomfortably asleep on the couch, asks me to come to bed, and pretty much carries me back to our room. An angel.

She loves me when she tells me I’ve hurt her. When she asks for a break — a few minutes to regulate because we’ve been arguing and we both suck at it. When she cries. When I apologize and really mean it, and she forgives me, and hugs me back, and tells me how this argument was better than the last hundred and how proud she is of how far we’ve come, and how safe she feels, and how much she loves me.

And then I make a shitty joke and she laughs again.