The "L" Word

Saturday was another big day… B and I finally said “I love you” to each other.

B’s mother was in town for the day so he left my place around 8:30am to pick her up from the train station. They spent the afternoon together and he came back to my place around 7pm after dropping her off. It happened to be one of those rare warm and sunny days in Paris (this so-called spring weather is ridiculous!) so we planned to go bike riding. Naturally, all the Velib bikes were taken (the second the sun comes out of hiding, every Parisian in the city decides they want to go bike riding so unless you get to a Velib station by sunrise, there are never any bikes left) so we decided to go to a little café on Canal Saint Martin that B knew about where we could watch the sunset. We got there and, of course, all the outside seats were taken (gotta love Paris!). There was a supermarket next door so B suggested we grab some food and have a picnic along the canal—there were tons of people sitting along the edge of the canal drinking beers with their friends (totally illegal, but then this is France, the police don’t care). So we picked up a baguette, some saucisson, a bag of chips, a few beers and some cookies and found a spot along the canal to spread out and watch the sunset. It was lovely.

On the way home, we decided to stop by a little Irish pub called The Cork and Cavan and have another round. We hung out there for a few hours, chatting about lots of random stuff—from religion to football to Henry VIII—and at one point we were just making googly eyes at each other. He smiled and said, “What are you thinking?” Now, he always asks me what I’m thinking, and if it happens to be about him, I just laugh and say “Nothing” and he eventually lets it go. But this time, he wouldn’t let it go. He was like, “Whisper it to me” and we were whispering silly things back and forth to each other and then suddenly he whispers, “I love you”. WOW.

I said it back and he just kissed me all over my face, repeating “I love you” over and over again. It was so completely out of the blue and so HUGE, but oddly, really easy to say. Now to hear him call me “my love”… it’s just so exciting and weird!

It’s funny, because as close as my mom and I are, we never really had that kind of relationship where we said “I love you” to each other every day. Except if I was going off to college or moving Paris or something, we aren’t the type to say “I love you” at every parting. Plus, I’ve never loved a man before (except for those silly little crushes I was prone to every once in a while where I thought I was in love… but let’s just forget all about that shall we) so it’s totally new for me (and for him) but its really nice.