The first spot was a curve on her cheek near the cor­ner of her lips. It would only appear when she was smil­ing a cer­tain way.

I have this pic­ture of her reclin­ing on the chaise with her head thrown back on the pil­low in laugh­ter. It’s hor­ri­bly com­posed, and I can hear her telling me how weird she thinks she looks in the pic­ture, but it cap­tured the expres­sion per­fect­ly.

The smile was­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly allur­ing. It was goofy even. But that’s what I loved about it. She was this angel, this siren, this muse to the world, and I was the only one who could see her like this; cheeks pulled back, gig­gling uncon­trol­lably, bury­ing her head in the pil­low from self-con­scious­ness when­ev­er I point­ed out the spot and tried to kiss it. I was the only one for whom she let her guard down, even if only for a pass­ing moment. It was so adorable and inti­mate at the same time.