The first time he calls you beautiful, it feels like you're being lit on fire. You've known him for all of four days and the whole world has started to spin the other way. Of course your mum has called you beautiful before, but she's your mum and it's her job. And Mickey has said it plenty of times, especially the nights when his lips are on your skin, and the moonlight is streaming in through the window.

But then he says it and it's like you're rediscovering the word, like you're really hearing it for the first time, like the definition in the dictionary had it wrong the whole time. He says it, and you feel like he might be looking right through you in the way you always hoped and always feared someone would one day. It's like he's extracting the light from inside of you with two fingertips and letting it float through the air, dance in front of you.

It's like he's whispering, "Look. Look at what you are." The word is nestling galaxies and nebulas and everything you suddenly want to see and explore. You want to run out and show everyone who you are, because he says it and it's different than when your mum said it, a passing remark, "You're beautiful, but you need to learn to show it off, Rose."

It's different than when Mickey said it to you, a thank you, an empty compliment, muttered over and over again because what else do you say when you're holding a girl in your arms?

When he says it, it's like your whole life is jumbled up in front of you into something you can create, into something you can shape. He says it, and it's like he can see beyond you, beyond everything you are and everything you want. He says it, and you finally see what he saw the first time you met in the alley behind your shop. He says it, and you think you know what he meant when he said he could feel the Earth moving under his feet.