If I could begin again, I would change the setting. But not the sentiment. The sentiment was perfect.

We were in line at Jack in the Box when I first said "I love you." Young, broke, and decades from cholesterol issues, we had diddled away the morning in bed and were hunting for affordable, at-the-ready gut-fill. I stood behind you with my arms around your waist, deliriously inhaling the scent of your shirt, when the words tumbled clumsily from my mouth.

I love ... you.

The sound of it was electric; it shocked me. It crackled and buzzed with the gravity of the future. I wanted to retract it, to bang the oral "delete" key like a maniac. I also wanted to shout it until I was hoarse, and to tattoo it across my chest in ornate purple letters.

The phrase was so leaden with significance that I thought it might fall crashing to the ground before it rose to your ears. In just three stunted syllables, it quashed my protective cool, exposed my secret notions of what's worth loving, and declared my reasonless allegiance to all that you stood for, and did, and said.

And then it was time to order. Two sourdough burgers, a side of fries, one marriage, a mortgage, and two kids. To go ...