I played it cool, but it hurt not to hear it back. I spent the next few days panicking that I had scared him off, just like my friends kind-of-said-but-didn’t-say I would. I remember thinking, this is why women are told not to say it first. I felt like a crazy person, a blend of sadness and something that felt a lot like guilt, like I had done something wrong. A couple of days after the incident, I even asked him if what I had said altered things between us. He assured me it hadn’t, though nothing he said could really erase the embarrassment I felt. After about a week, I had no choice but to pretend the whole thing didn’t happen. I tried to act as normally as possible. You know, aside from silently cursing myself for ever opening my big mouth about love at all.Then, about a month later, I was in the kitchen at my apartment heating up some leftover pizza in the oven. The awkwardness from the love conversation had mostly subsided. He was in my bedroom reading, and he suddenly called my name urgently. “Vanessa! Come here!” I thought, this is it. I finally have roaches. I have roaches and they have set up a colony in my room. I’ll have to burn everything I own and find a new place to live. But when I got to my bedroom, there wasn’t an infestation. He was lying on my bed and pulled me over to him. “I love you,” he said.What happened next wasn’t anything like a romantic comedy. For one thing, I hadn’t even showered. There was no soundtrack of, I don’t know, Michelle Branch? No cinematic elements, here. We were more like that kitten again, taking a couple of padded-paw steps out of its crate into unknown territory. It was new, and it was good, but so unfamiliar.Here’s the the thing: I didn’t say “I love you” because I needed to hear it back. Yes, I spent a few weeks agonizing over the reasons he didn’t return the expression immediately, however, I told him since I meant it, and that it was killing me not to. It could have blown up in my face. He could have behaved the way cultural tropes had led me to believe he might, and ended our relationship the next day for mysterious reasons. I was prepared for that. But I remember thinking, well, if he doesn’t love me back, then what the hell are we doing together anyway?Now saying “I love you” is something we’re careful with. We don’t want to wear it out by saying it every time we hang up the phone or texting it to each other every few hours. We say it when we’re feeling genuinely moved by each other, or when I’m about to get on a plane. We write it in birthday cards. But having it out in the open, rather than tiptoeing around it for a year, waiting for him to say it, has made things so wonderful. Our love is still like that kitten, learning how exactly to make its home with us — except now it’s running around looking for all the different things it could interact with in this new environment, and attacking our feet while we sleep.