Within a very short time, he told me he loved me, and I knew he meant it. I also knew I felt the same way, but I couldn't say it right away. We fell in love so easily, it was like we had always been there. We never fought. We talked about absolutely Everything. We sent sometimes five messages a day each, called each other on weekends, and sent tape letters through the snail mail. We disgusted our friends, we were so "saccharine". We began to realize, regardless that we'd never met in person, that this was real love, unlike anything either of us had thought we'd experienced before. We knew someday we would be together, and that we would always be there for each other. He was my first boyfriend, my first, true love, and I knew he would be my first kiss, my first lover. He told me I was the first to truly love him for who he was, for all that he was, and that I was the first to show him what being in love truly meant. And so we became Imzadi, "a simple, made up word to put my entire being in the palm of your hand, to make intangible hands caress me in the night...never parting in this life or any after..."
He asked me if I was sure Victor was the man hawk, and I said his overly human responses were a dead giveaway. He told me he was aware of the presence of an old soul within him, but he couldn't identify it. He wrote a small story based on what I had told him, about the young storyteller dealing with the loss of her mentor, and her hunter friend drawing her away from her sadness. We figured we would be able to learn more about our past once we were together.
The distance began to hurt a great deal. I began saving up for a visit, and it was scheduled for the last weekend in January. We counted down the days, and prayed that a snowstorm would close the airports so I couldn't leave once I was there. Finally our long wait was over, and when my plane pulled up to the gate I smiled, I knew he had brought me flowers. I saw him from the gate, but walking over to him was a blur. I remember the warm feeling of finally being in his arms, and the smell of his cologne and his suede jacket, and feeling his hands on my back holding me close and never wanting to let go. Along with the flowers, he gave me a red beanie cow (the start of my vast collection), and he told me to look at the cow's neck, and I saw a silver necklace, which we later called a hug. He helped me put it on in the car, and all I remember of the trip to his house after that was leaning against him and looking out the window at the snow.
We got to his house and took my bags up to his room. We held each other for the longest time, but I was nervous. I knew he wanted to kiss me, and I was a little embarrassed that I'd never done it before. He didn't push me, but I got over it real quick. He was supposed to sleep downstairs, and the first two nights he did, but the last three we slept together in what became our bed, our room. We had decided not to have sex because it would make leaving all that much harder to do, but we fooled around plenty to make up for it, and it was as much making love as anything else.
And as soon as I was seated on the plane that would take me away from him, for the first time in five years, I started to cry.