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We were sitting by the light of a tiny fire, with the backdrop of an impressively designed house and well-placed river view. One of your friends had had his harmonica strategically placed on the arm of his outdoor chair, and I had already asked about it. With the sudden playing of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold”, he played the introduction in perfect harmony with the sound from the speakers. I was taken aback with how it made me feel.

I remember asking you if you had ever felt a special sort of nostalgia, the kind that occurs with someone you haven’t known very well and haven’t grown to rely on for emotional experiences. I wasn’t drunk, so who knows why I felt comfortable telling you that. Maybe it’s because you make me feel so content with who I am. I don’t feel like I need to say things to impress you; I feel like I can be myself and you will see that and feel nothing but happiness. Maybe it’s the honeymoon phase talking.

All I know is that you told me you aren’t usually able to spend a week straight with someone without getting tired of them. And that even in the moments when you get on my nerves, you always seem to know what to say to make me feel lucky to have you again. Your grandfather asked me when he met me for the first time if you love me. I didn’t know what to say at the time but it makes me giddy to understand something like that might be possible. That someone could love me and all his family could see it.

It breaks my heart to know that I might never get the chance to really explore something with you. But at the same time, I mean every word I have said and written expressing my excitement and desire to pursue our separate lives, to explore the world in the way we have planned. I know there are differences in what we want to do, but being with someone has never felt so easy, I’ve never felt so motivated to do things that make someone happy. Maybe it’s because it’s so easy, things that make you happy tend to be things that would make me happy too anyway. I’ve learned that I am willing to give a lot to keep the people I care about happy. But for you, I never wonder for a second if you would be willing to return the favor.

One day, after we have gone and explored the way that the world works on our own, let’s meet and circle the globe again. I think getting to know the world with you will make old experiences seem new again. Let’s jump out of planes, swim with whales, you can tattoo me and I can write a book about the way you talk to me, about the way I look at you. I hope you know that the fact that I’m writing about you while I’m still with you and happy is the most telling thing of all. I spent two years feeling “in love” with my ex-boyfriend, and I never wrote a word.

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On my second night in Dewey Beach, I didn’t have much faith in having a good time. The night had begun early, and things seemed bleak because our first trip to the bar infamous for its support of Loyola students showed only people from my high school, there for senior weeks for other schools, along with an eclectic mix of middle-aged people there to enjoy some weird cover band. But on a second trip to the bar, wet from the rain and confused about whether I was really willing to let myself call it the end, I walked back into the bar and discovered with glee just how crowded it was. It wasn’t even a question that I would go back there, and so I let the rest of my friends go back to our house, and I marched happily in with other friends, there and set to begin a search for someone I only halfway knew I was looking for.

The night before, I had been with this guy, Conor, from my sociology class. I hadn’t really been attracted to him, but his laugh was nice, and I was pleased with the spell he seemed to have fallen under very quickly. I took him home, and he was very nice to my roommates. He wasn’t nearly voracious enough, like I was used to, so I felt a bit bored by the whole occurrence. We didn’t have sex. It wasn’t hard to let him go. But I still remembered you, a boy I had seen looking at me the night before, and who I was intrigued enough by to search for, if only to get you to talk to and be interested in me.

I think I knew that I would find you, or at least, I knew that I would search until I found someone. And lo and behold, you were talking to someone I knew, at least by association. I was walking alone, so who cares who it was, I was determined to get my chance at you. As soon as I saw you look at me, I knew with a weird sense of glee that I would get, for the second night in a row, exactly what I wanted.

Things felt too good to be true, actually. I was at the perfect level of drunk where I didn’t feel weird sharing aspects of my life that I know to be particularly interesting, but also could feel actual intrigue as I heard what you had to say. I won’t lie, your reputation preceded you, but each word you said only brought you further into the spotlight of my mind. You spilled your beer on me, and I was more embarrassed for all the people watching than for you, because at that point, I wouldn’t have walked away if you had spilled a thousand beers on me. I was hooked, at least in a way that I was determined to spend a night finding out what chemistry we could find together. You at one point said you were going to try something, and I knew immediately that you meant you were going to try and kiss me. I felt the immediate rush of semi-repulsion that I always feel when I understand the shift in a boy’s interest from my mind to my body, but I have to say, if I could go back and have a first kiss with you again, I would do it ten thousand times. It’s something about how glad I was to be there with you. For some reason, you had me at hello (although you remembered my name, and I was too afraid to guess at yours).

We did go home together. It was really nice, you had your own room, and you put some music on this speaker you had behind the blinds on your windowsill, and even though it wasn’t any kind of music I’d hoped for, I found it so cute you had it on at all. And the fact that you apologized for the existence of some pretty weird songs. We spent an inordinate amount of time in your bed together the next day, for people who had just met and who were in a place meant for goodbyes. I didn’t want things to end, I felt so lucky you wanted me there, and so afraid with my blurry contacts that an old tissue on the floor was an old condom, and that this happiness was only meant for a night. I kissed you goodbye, went to hang out with my friends, and promised to return later for a party you were having at your house.

After the positive feedback from my friends, you wouldn’t believe how afraid I was that we wouldn’t get the chance to repeat the first night we met. All I wanted was to sleep in your bed with you again, and when you didn’t respond when I was at your house, and your door was locked, I waited in line for the bathroom in front of your door, pretending I had an actual reason to be there, and waiting for another pretty girl to come out of your room and prove every feeling I was having about you to be wrong. You finally told me you had fallen asleep and had missed most of the party. My heart soared. It was never a question that I wouldn’t be going back to my house that night. I don’t even remember if we tried to go out. I was too focused on being in your bed again. I’ve been known to fall into things pretty fast.

I’m not used to having someone tell me with confidence that they are happy to be with me, or that they think I am worth knowing. At least not in my romantic relationships. I’m also not used to being with someone whose friends approve of me, and who pleases the people who are most important in my life. I’m used to having to sneak around, to a boyfriend whose mom has never once said my name out loud (that I’ve been around to hear) and to being expected to feel worth less than those around me. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but basically, I’m used to people putting me down. But you’ve been different. And each day I’ve been terrified to lose that. Or, more like, I’ve been terrified to have to go without it. And terrified of the dependency I’m starting to feel. I don’t feel the way I did with my ex-boyfriend—scared of being single and of a future alone. But I’m no longer so confident that my future is a place I necessarily want to enter completely alone. I don’t know. We’re not perfect, and this isn’t meant to last, but somehow I keep telling myself that there’s future here. Maybe in a few years, maybe sooner, maybe later. But the point is, I’ve started to get this overwhelming feeling that I am doing something right. And that, as far as within my romantic relationships, is not something I have ever felt before.