In that moment, as I leaned on the railing and watched them all dancing, the unasked questions buoyed my heart, lifted it up with the tide, and I smiled, knowing for that one moment the answer.

The sense of certainty, of inevitability was profound.

But I said it before: it doesn’t mean it’s going to be some fairy tale ending. I only know what my answer was in that brief moment, knowing that I would give that answer no matter what happens next, even if I only get to creep in the shadows, flitting through the bright, electron-infested interstices of the Internet, hoping for some hint, some passing mention of her.

Just to know that she exists in this world is enough. And where I go from there is clear.

To love, pure and chaste from afar if that’s the way it’s got to be. Although I wish that wasn’t all there was to be, what is, is, and that will always be enough.