I was thinking about something you said the other day. We were leaving school, and we had about an hour to kill before we had to be back. And you said, “Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?” And I said, “I think I want to go home and sleep. Unless you really want coffee.” And you said “No, let’s go home.” It didn’t feel weird or anything. In fact the words came to us automatically. But that makes it all the more important. You see, we used to say “let’s go to my house” or “let’s go to your house,” but now we just say “let’s go home.”

So, I started thinking about how a home is this collection of assorted memories, feelings and shared experiences. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, that connection is able to manifest itself physically. The connection has to come before the physical items that make up a home; laughter must come before a kitchen table, comfort must come before a couch, and love before a bed. We don’t really have these opportunities, given that we’re both still minors and in high school. But in some ways, all of this can be summed up by the fact that a 2 litre bottle of diet Dr. Brown’s cream soda has become a residential item on my cluttered nightstand. I hate diet Dr. Brown’s.

I realized that my home has nothing to do with my house. I didn’t build my house, my parents did. It’s based in their connection, which might be why it’s so crappy. No, my home is you. The dark never felt comforting until you were there with me. My couch never felt cozy until you started cuddling on it. My bed never felt safe until you started sleeping in it. It’s not my house that has changed, it’s not me that has changed. It’s you. You are my home.

And then I started thinking about what it would be like if we were able to build ourselves a home. I thought of a little white house in the middle of Suburbia, with an open floor plan. I thought about an office, cluttered with the busy minds of two engineers, painted olive green with our degrees on the wall. And the walls of the playroom would be non-porous, so we could buy those markers that we use in physics and write on the walls. The kids could doodle, and we could argue about the value of electric fields outside one of two parallel plates of equal and opposite charge. I thought about looking out a big window up into the sky at night during the thunder and lightening, or out into our open yard, watching the seasons change. Dry brittle hot grass, then leaves sprinkled throughout, soon covered with a blanket of white snow, through which the spring flowers would break through. And surrounding it all, a white picket fence, built by hand. By you and me.

I thought about what this meant. Because I’ve told you that I never want this to end, and neither do you, and I’m terrified of that fact. But I think deep down, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m not promising you forever, I’m not asking you to promise me forever, because things change, and people change, and circumstances change. We’re young, what the hell do we know?

A lot, I think. We’re young, but normal people don’t have this type of connection. Normal people don’t fall asleep together on the phone every night. Normal people choose to trust, but we didn’t choose to trust each other that very first night. We just did. So I amend Noah’s statement: you choose to respect, you sometimes choose to trust. But mostly, you don’t choose to trust, and you don’t choose to believe, and you don’t choose to feel, and you don’t choose to love.

I guess what I’m saying, in my very long and roundabout way, is that if I can see this future, if I can feel this home, then I must love you.

I love you.