I look down at our knees slightly touching. Jeans against jeans. Does she notice the heat transferring from her body to mine Does she even realize what shes doing to me I know I know. Im not a virgin and the slightest touch of a girls knee is driving me insane. I dont even know what Im feeling for Maggie I just know that Im feeling. Its something Ive tried to avoid and deny until yesterday when I held her in my arms while her tears spilled onto my shirt.God our knees touching isnt enough. I need more.Shes knotting her fingers together on her lap as if she doesnt know what to do with them. I want to touch her but what if she pulls awaylike before Ive never been such a wuss with a girl in my life.I bite my bottom lip as I slide my hand about millionth of a millimeter closer to her hand.She doesnt seem fazed so I move closer. And closer.When the tips of my fingers touch her wrist she freezes. But she doesnt jerk her hand away. God her skin is so soft I think as my fingers trail a path from her wrist to her knuckles to her smooth manicured nails.I swear touching her like this is driving me nuts. Its more erotic more intense than any other time with Kendra. I feel awkward andinexperienced as a freshman again. I look up. Everyone else is oblivious to the intensity of emotions running rampant in the back of the public bus.When I look back down at my hand covering hers Im grateful she hasnt come to her senses and pulled away. As if she knows mythoughts we both turn our hands at the same time so our hands are palm against palm...finger against finger. Her hand is dwarfed against mine. It makes her seem more delicate and petite than Id realize. I feel a need to protect her and be her champion should she ever need one.With a slight shift of my hand I lace my fingers through hers.Im holding hands. With Maggie Armstrong.Im not even going to think about how wrong it is because it feels so right. Shes avoided looking right at me but now she turns her headand our eyes lock. God how come I never noticed before how long her lashes were and how her brown eyes have specks of gold that sparkle when the sun shine on themThe bus stops suddenly and I look out the window. Its our stop. She must have realized this because she pulls her hand away from mine and stands. I follow behind still reeling.

When you fish for love bait with your heart not your brain.

She smiled and her eyes started to drift downward. Cather... Back up to his eyes.You know that Im falling in love with you right

All any of us wanted really was to know that we counted. That someone elses life would not have been as rich without us here.

Loves gift cannot be given it waits to be accepted.

Let me tell you about love that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn - by practice and careful contemplations - the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated You dont. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable and therefore capable of learning how to learn and therefore interesting to God who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives their cleaving wont mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen.

I dont want to live I want to love first and live incidentally.

Any lustful fool can love a million women but only a real man can love one woman cloned a million times.

We live in a dark and romantic and quite tragic world.

My love is like one of those wooden Russian nesting dolls matryoshka doll. I know because your heart fits perfectly inside mine.