Every time I said I love you

[Writing prompt given by my friend, Aditi:

Every time you said 'I love you', and what you meant when you said it - in chronological order.]

The first time I said I love you was out of convention. It was cool to seal it with a kiss and those three magical words. Magical, not so much; but they got you in my pants, so to hell all else.

The second, third, fourth and fifth time I repeated those words, it was fashionable. It was to show we were ‘it’. I spoke it just loud enough so your friends could hear, and just low enough so my parents wouldn’t.

The next hundred thousand times I repeated those words was out of habit. Out of the fear of breaking routine. Out of competition, to defeat you at the game of saying ‘I love you’, as if to say my love is greater than yours. Almost a matter of correct punctuation.

I didn’t know it then, but the hundred thousand and sixth time I said ‘I love you’, I meant it. On a lonely night when you were shattered and I held you in my arms, alone, not out of lust but support; not out of habit, but want; not out of convention, but desire. I said it because I absolutely, balls-out, from the bottom of my fucking heart, lungs and kidneys loved you to hell and beyond, more than any other living being in the world. 

The last time I said I love you was a whisper into void. I hoped you were listening, but knew you were not. And that was the end of it.