TERMS OF THE HEART
I gestured at the blank space where a new document might have gone, though we both understood there was no paper large enough to hold what we actually meant, "—because somewhere in the last year, you became the thing I never let myself hope for. Not safety. Not money. Just someone who saw exactly how much I was carrying, and instead of asking me to carry less, asked how he could help me carry it."
He kissed me then, slow and certain, no cameras watching, no board members judging, no trust clause requiring anything of either of us at all — just two people who'd started as strangers negotiating terms, and become, somewhere in the space between contract and truth, each other's whole and willing