I have loved you between seasons, between other lovers, between moves across the Atlantic. I have loved you on the train between Nice and Paris, the train between London and Edinburgh, the train between Boston and New York. I have loved you between 10pm and midnight, between 8am and noon. I have loved you on the walk between my apartment and the post office, in the fraction of a second when my foot hovers between the platform and the subway floor. I have loved you between aisle 10 and aisle 12 and I have loved you in the crumb-filled crevice between the cushions of my couch. I have loved you in the breath between hello and how are you. I have loved you in the space between my clasped hands and in the gaps between my ribs. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’m certain that I’ve loved you somewhere between my stomach and my spleen. I have loved you in the cracks between slabs of pavement on the sidewalk and in the dirt between my skin and fingernails. I have loved you between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner and I don’t think I have ever not loved you between dinner and tomorrow. I have often wondered what it would be like to love you in the not in-between places. If it would feel any different. I have always imagined it would but I just googled “opposite of transient” and it came back with “permanent,” which I’m pretty sure this is. So now I’m not so certain.

Tell me, if we take everything in the in-between and put it together, does that make the thing? I have said between so many times that it’s starting to sound like a made-up word. It’s like when someone says milk too many times and it loses all its word-ness. Go ahead, try it. Say milk ten times. You’ll see it doesn’t sound right anymore.

But it doesn’t happen with love. Isn’t that funny? You could say it a hundred thousand million times and it would still sound like something real. A hundred thousand million times and nothing would be lost.