He told me he loved me while we were making out. I smiled. As responses to a first declaration go, mine was accurate but light on information.
We had been dating for about a month, and things were going really well. We were officially boyfriend and girlfriend, seeing each other several times a week. There was already something lovely happening between us. I just hadn’t expected it to acquire those three words quite so suddenly.
He wasn’t drunk. I can’t file the moment under something he said after a few too many drinks, then pretend that settles it. He said it, I heard it, and I was caught completely off guard. My face apparently accepted responsibility for the reply before the rest of me was ready.
The smile wasn’t disappointment. Hearing him say it felt wonderful. That is the part I can be definite about, even though I didn’t manage an equally definite sentence. There’s an awkward gap between being happy to hear something and knowing what to say back, especially when the relationship is still new enough that each development feels like news.
We had already made the move from dating to being a couple. This felt like another kind of step, one I hadn’t known was coming that night. The first month had been going well; suddenly I was wondering what that month meant to him. I hadn’t arrived at the moment with a prepared answer. My advance preparation for this development had been nonexistent.
Later, I brought it up and told him I thought it was very sweet. That was my attempt to give the smile some supporting words. I liked what he had said, and I didn’t want my surprise to be the only response he had to go on.
He was really shy about it. Then he jokingly said he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Having introduced a fairly substantial subject himself, he was now gently trying to close it. I had only just caught up with the conversation.
That left me wondering whether I’d embarrassed him by returning to it. I don’t know whether he meant a considered declaration of love or whether the feeling came out in the closeness of the moment. His shyness didn’t supply a reliable answer, and neither did the joke. It did make my belated attempt to be reassuring feel a little less straightforward than I’d intended.
I still don’t know exactly how he meant it. He had jokingly asked to leave the subject alone; I was left with the words, my smile, and how nice it had felt to hear them.
