I kissed him and in that instant I knew: I knew that I loved him.

The heavens opened above us as we kissed, rain drops flattening our hair to our heads like glue and seeping in through my winter coat causing it to stick to me in odd patches like damp cotton wool. Not that I noticed at the time - I was too caught up in that moment & that kiss to notice much of anything. All I could hear was my own internal voice giddily repeating the words: “I love you” over and over again inside my head. All I could smell was the scent of his shampoo mixing with the grey December rain. There was nothing else.

When I think back to it now, I realise that it’s not entirely true to say that it was in that instant that I knew I loved him - the silent, unspoken part of me had known it long before that kiss in the rain. Instead, that kiss acted like a key, opening the gate between the spoken and the unspoken. It give me back my internal voice that had been buried and trapped since my controlling ex had ditched me a year ago & stayed that way throughout my on-off rebound fling. It made me reconnect with myself in a way that I thought I’d lost in a sea of pretending and putting on a brave face for everyone else’s sake.

The kiss ended and before I had chance to think I blurted out the words “I love you” to him in the same slightly breathless giddy tone as my internal voice. A second ticked by. Then another and I could feel the blush starting to spread across my cheeks as the internal voice switched tracks, asking me: “What if he doesn’t love you?”. I started to panic, to urgently concoct an explanation for my words, a way to take them back and reset the clock on my confession. A third second ticked by and then I heard the words: “I love you too” come tumbling awkwardly out of his mouth. I looked up at him, not entirely sure that I’d actually heard him right and then I saw the smile on his face and I knew that I had.

I grinned like a Cheshire cat as we turned to face the street again and set out on our way home with the sound of the rain and drunken Christmas party goers as our background music. I watched them, sliding over the cobbles in high heels and designer jeans as they groped their way past each other towards the taxi rank. Then I looked down at our hands, fingers entwined and I knew - this was real. This was love.