Exclusivity

What I would do is to tell you I understood what you needed, I loved you anyway, then I would explain why I can't do that. I would explain that I care about many of these people, not more than I care for you, but that I care for them still. I would explain that my flirting is generally play that doesn't and couldn't in any way diminish how I feel for you. I would explain that you were safe; that I would never hurt you, no matter how many people I flirted with, and that I would never tolerate anyone hurting you. I would explain that I accept how you feel, that as I promised, no matter what choice you make, I will wait patiently for you and take you back gladly if you ever return, no matter where you've been, or what you've done. That I hope you will change your mind and come back to me in friendship and love, but that I can not love other people less simply because I love you. If I could it wouldn't really be love at all.

I understand your feelings completely... the need to control and to be controlled, the desire to have one person for simplicities sake, because the world is confusing and scary and it's easier to keep everything in line that way... at one time I would have taken you, seduced your mind, and given you just that.

But I would have been wrong to do it. If you chose never to come back then I would love you still. I would rejoice when you were happy and cry when you were sad. I would hold you when you were if you would let me, even to see you fly away as soon as your hurts were assuaged. I would adore you from a distance as you danced and played and sang. I would cry for you and bleed for you when your choices brought you pain. And if you ever returned, even dirty, and bloody, abused, and ill unto death I would take you back with joy in my heart.

Shrug... perhaps you would never give me the opportunity to do those things, because yes, I might never know. But that would change nothing.

Because that is what love means to me.