Never

“Never?” he asked, surprised.

Looking away, she gently shook her head.
“Never.
I have always imagined what it would feel like, but I have never had it happen to me. I have never been up all night because my head was too occupied to rest, never walked by a dozen faces and seen the same one in all of them, never felt the urge to do nothing but stare at a pair of beautiful eyes all day long, never had my heart ache because I could not stay away for even a short while.
I don’t know what it feels like to look at someone and see everything I have ever wanted or could ever want. To look at someone and say for sure, ‘This is it. I have arrived’. To not just write a verse, but to feel it in every heartbeat and in every breath I take. To wake up from every dream smiling because I have just woken up to something far more amazing than any dream I have ever had. To not just have my eyes fill up every time I watch a romantic movie, but to have a face appear before me – one that’s clear even through the tears.
I know not of the feeling that makes you fall hard even when you try with every fiber of your being to walk away. Or the one that pulls you in like a riptide.
I have come close though. An intense crush, a person I have bared my heart to at 3 am, a pair of eyes I met while looking at my favorite book at a bookstore – I thought they could be it. But it’s always one short of just right.
There is a phrase that I find absolutely perfect – ‘hauntingly beautiful’. I am yet to find its rightful owner.”

He stood dumbfounded. “Wow. Doesn’t sound like you have never fallen in love”, he said finally.

“Maybe that’s because I’m starting to.”