Easy to Love You

"You don't leave the person you love."

The kids are asleep on blankets upstairs and all of us adults are sitting around the living room. It's late at night, chilling on the wood floor with beers.

Eloise likes baby food much more than breastfeed so she only feeds in the morning and at night, and sometimes in the middle of the day.

I haven't been table to have a beer in years.

"Can you ask you something?" I ask, looking at Noah. He nods. "When you and Emily had your first kiss...and first time, you know...did it feel special?"

He raises his eyebrows.

"Special?" He repeats. I nod. "What do you mean special?"

"I mean..." I swallow, and then I sigh. "Was it breathtaking? Did it make you love her a million times more? Did you want to marry her right then and there?"

"I-" he cuts off. "It was just a kiss."

I study him for a long time.

"Why?" He asks. "Did you have that? With Spencer?"

Smile smiles.

"Oh, what was it, the day after, right? You avoided me and when I got you alone, you told me that you thought the kiss was fake, that you imagined the whole thing. You wouldn't even look me in the eye. God Jules, I thought you thought I kissed like a slug!"

I smile at my husband, blushing.

"And then I told you that you kissed away my sanity." I laugh softly.

"And the first time?" Noah asks.

I frown, thinking back to that night.

"That was..." I smile. "It was never sex. Not in the beginning. No, it was making love, and there is a definite difference. Sex is just..." I hesitate. "It's pleasure. Making love is...a moment between two people that..." I swallow. "It's hard to come by."

"What about your ex fiance?" He asks. "Ashton, right?" My face screws up in disgust. "Did you get moments like that with him?"

"Oh, oh god no, and he was my first kiss. He was disgusting."

"You didn't think that when you told him you'd marry him." He says.

I hate Ashton. He's my least favorite person and my least favorite subject.

"You were going to marry him, but you love Spencer. But you never had those moments with Ashton, so why were you going to marry him?"

I look down at my beer.

I can't help but wonder if everyone has been wondering that. Judging by the way they're looking at me, I'm going to go with yes.

"You loved him, right?" Noah presses. "It's fucked up to take a ring from somebody if you don't love them."

"Noah," Spencer starts carefully, watching me.

"I loved him." I say. "Or at least, I thought I did. I...Noah, you have to understand. I didn't remember my Dad. I had my brother and Kendall. I didnt' grow up with the foundation that you did. With the love that you did. I grew up thrown around foster homes, getting my ass kicked for stealing food or asking to go to in the house before eight at night. I didn't know what love is, and Ashton came in before I really knew Kendall, so..." I'm frustrated. "He was my friend first, and I didn't understand the difference between friend and lover. I never, not once felt the way I do with Spencer with Ashton. I loved him, but i loved him as a friend, and I didn't know that. I didn't' know that for a while, even a while after I met Spencer. Ashton was abusive and mean and controlling."