“My heart hurts,” I said
“Why?” she asked
“I think I’m happy,” I said

She’s eleven years old, he’s eleven years old. They’re walking down the street in a bubblegum sunset. She bumps his hip and laughs.

“Will you promise me you’ll come to my wedding all those years from now?” she says.

He finds her funny and he loves her, although he doesn’t know it yet, and says, “Darn right I will! I’ll trip you over in your puffy white dress.”

She rolls her eyes. “I,” she says matter-of-factly, “will not be wearing white. I will be wearing eggshell.” She pauses. “Will you be at the pews or at the altar?”

He thinks about this for a moment and says, “At the altar!”

She laughs and throws her arms around him and nearly shouts into his ear, “I hope the next words you say won’t be ‘Because it’ be all the easier to trip you over!’” 

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” he mumbles even though he doesn’t know what just happened, but he’s smiling because he’s the only one who makes her laugh like that.