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Kookie and I sat in silence on our drive back into the city.  After we buckled our seat belts, he reached for me.  His hand came looking for mine.  I glanced up at him as he held his hand out to me.

He smiled.  That smile that always, without fail, melts my heart.  “I want to hold your hand,” he enlightened me.

Heart melted.  Again.  How many times can one heart melt?  Around Kookie I haven’t found a limit yet.

I returned that smile, a tear in my eye.  I would miss this boy a thousand times more when we all flew home than my heart had ever yearned for him before I met him yesterday.  Wait!  Was it really only yesterday that I had met Kookie?  It felt like a week ago at least.  How had he stolen my heart in less than a day?  But truthfully, it had taken him only a moment.

In this moment, my eyes found the scar on his cheek.  The one caused by an argument with his brother over – of all the ridiculous things – a video game.  I gazed at that perfect imperfection and wondered at how one person could be so strikingly beautiful even with such a flaw.  Did he love his flaws the way I did?  He was such to me that his spots made him more appealing to me.  Not less.  Maybe because they made him real.  He wasn’t some unapproachable demi-god, but a flesh-and-blood man with weaknesses too.  Just like me.  I wished in that moment for him to see himself as I did.  Without flaw.  Precious.  So absolutely adorable.  

His laughter floated up before my vision.  That captivating way he had of giving himself completely to joy when his funny bone was tickled.  His eyes turning into slanted, dark half-moons rising above his cheeks.  His cute nose scrunching up to make room for his mouth which had suddenly decided to take over half his face while it revealed a set of perfect, chubby teeth that somehow complimented the shape of his face.  And then the sound.  The music that erupted from within him as humor overtook his soul.  Kookie’s laugh is a masterpiece.

I lifted my hand and put it in his.  His fingers closed around mine and squeezed.  The corners of his mouth lifted.  But it was his eyes that held mine.  His eyes that always spoke to mine.  His eyes that got to me every time.  When he smiled, they crinkled up in the corners.  When he laughed, they disappeared, making me wait with bated breath for just one more glimpse of them.  When he cried, they beckoned me to weep with them.  When he grew silent and sober, they invited me to solve the mysteries they contained.  When they were bent on someone, they leaked honor.  He was looking at me that way right now.  Kookie’s eyes fascinated me.  I felt like I was falling into them.  Perhaps I would lose myself in them and never return to the world around me.  I would simply melt into those chocolate pools, forever transfixed by the love I saw there.

Then he blinked and returned his attention to the road.  And I knew that I had simply passed but a moment gazing into his lovely eyes.  I sighed.  It had been too short a time.  Yet so full of wonder.