I love her.

The realization doesn’t hit me softly. It crashes into me like a truth I can no longer outrun. I have spent most of my life controlling situations, people, outcomes. I have always known how to stay ten steps ahead, how to predict threats before they surface. But this—this feeling—has blindsided me completely.

I’m glad that I told her.

If I hadn’t, I think I would have drowned in it. I have lived with unspoken things before, buried them under responsibility and power, ...