The sixth floor
The night the power went out
Four hours, nine candles, and the best conversation of my life. I have been quietly hoping for another blackout ever since.
Chapter one of forever
Yousef&Nour
It all began with a cup of coffee
Seven years. Four cities. One impossible amount of love.
Since 12 October 2019
Our story
Seven years, seven moments
Every love story has its landmarks. These are ours.
The coffee shop
Every other table was taken. You looked up, moved your book, and said 'sit'. I have been sitting across from you ever since.
The first evening
We meant to stay an hour. The waiter stacked the chairs around us at midnight and neither of us noticed until he coughed.
The rainy night
One umbrella, both of us soaked anyway. You said it first. I had been rehearsing it for three weeks.
The sea, at last
Our first trip. You woke me at dawn so I would not miss the colour of the water before the crowds arrived.
The sixth floor
No lift, one window, and a kitchen too small for two. We were happier there than we had any right to be.
The question
I had a speech prepared. I forgot all of it. You said yes before I finished the first line.
The beginning
Everyone called it the end of the story. They were wrong. It was page one.
The album
Proof that it happened
Not the posed ones. The real ones.
Sealed until now
A letter I kept rewriting
Nour,
I have started this letter eleven times. Every version sounded like something I had read somewhere else, and you deserve sentences that belong only to you. So I stopped trying to be poetic and decided to just be honest.
Before you, I thought love was the loud part — the arrivals, the airports, the grand gestures. You taught me it is the quiet part. It is you leaving the hallway light on because you know I come home late. It is the way you hand me my coffee without looking up.
You have seen me at my worst — the year I lost the job, the months I was impossible to live with — and you did not flinch. You simply moved closer. I do not think you understand how rare that is. I think about it more often than I say.
People ask what I love about you and I give them a list, because a list is easy. The truth is harder to hand over: I love that the world makes more sense with you standing in it. That is not a line. It is just what happens.
So here is my promise, written down where you can hold me to it. I will keep choosing you on the ordinary days, not only the beautiful ones. I will keep learning you, because you keep becoming someone new and I want to meet every one of them.
Always, and then some.
Yousef
The list
Eight of about a thousand
I ran out of room, not out of reasons.
01 / 08
The laugh
The real one — the one that arrives too loud, in the wrong place, at exactly the right moment.
02 / 08
How you listen
Not waiting for your turn to speak. Actually listening, with your whole face.
03 / 08
Your courage
You are the bravest person I know, and you would argue with me about it, which proves my point.
04 / 08
The notes
Folded into my bag, my books, my coat pocket. I have kept every single one.
05 / 08
Your kindness
Especially to people who can do nothing for you. That is the kind that counts.
06 / 08
Morning coffee
Two cups, no conversation required. Seven years and it still feels like a small ceremony.
07 / 08
You make ordinary days count
A Tuesday with you is not a Tuesday. I do not know how you do that.
08 / 08
You feel like home
Wherever we have lived, the address was never the point. You were.
Favourites
The ones I replay
Small, unremarkable days that turned out to be the whole point.
The road to nowhere
We took the wrong exit on purpose and drove until the radio lost signal. You fell asleep against the window and I slowed down so it would last longer.
Your mother's kitchen
The first time she called me by my name instead of 'the boy'. You squeezed my hand under the table and pretended not to.
The airport, 4 a.m.
Three months apart ended in eleven seconds. You did not say anything and neither did I. There was nothing that needed saying.
The morning after the wedding
Everyone had gone home. We ate leftover cake off the same plate, still half-dressed for a party that was already over, and laughed at nothing.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.
I love you deeply, and I know the road to the impossible is long.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
On this earth there is that which deserves life.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Coming soon
Seven years since the coffee shop
Same date. Same table. I already booked it.
Until our anniversary
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Days
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Hours
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Minutes
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Seconds
There is one more thing.
The end — for now
To be continued.
This was only the first seven years. Come to bed — we have a lot of chapters left.
— Yousef