He is in love with her. He is in love with the skin of her neck, just below her left ear, where it's soft and pale and she giggles and sighs when he kisses it. He is in love with her clear, free laughter and the smiles she gives him without prompt or reason. He loves the way she acts like every day is summer, yanking him out by the hand even on the coldest days to adventure and explore and find wonder in the world. She loves to read, and he loves it when she closes her thumb in the book and rambles on to him about some passage or other, gesturing wildly, the book's pages flapping about in her grip. He loves the tiny little window garden she keeps, and the way she climbs every tree she sees when they go out to the park.

He is in love with the way she wears old glasses with new panes and drinks iced tea from a glass in any season and smiles at him with her eyes. He loves that she sometimes sits up through the night with him when he can't sleep and reads him poetry. She slips pressed flowers between the pages of his textbooks or the blank pages of his notebooks just to see him smile when he finds them. He tickles her until she cries with laughter and then kisses the mirthful tears away. Her hand is warm and soft in his and sometimes she'll turn his hand over and trace the lines of his palm with one slender finger. He loves that she gets excited about the smallest things, her eyes lighting up and a flush spreading across her cheeks. He is in love with the way she walks on the curb like it's a tightrope, and when she finally over-balances and falls one way or the other, she laughs and takes her bag back from him and hooks an arm in his and tries to convince him to skip with her.

He is in love with the wisps of her hair that get caught in his mouth while they sleep and the way she always quite literally rolls out of bed in the morning. He is in love with hearing her sing silly songs in the shower and hearing her sing them even louder in the car. He is in love with the life and glory that she is, in love with her light and the way everything she sees is a wonder and an amazement, how she can smile so brightly at life no matter what comes her way. Cosette surrounds him with love and laughter and brightness and warmth. He is in love with all that she is and all that she will be.