He pulls away and frowns into my face. “I’m serious, Nate.”
“So am I.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Iam,” I insist, taking his hand in mine. “I know you are, and I’m being serious when I say I promise.”
I can promise him this, because I know he won’t ruin my life, he could only ever make it better. None of that other stuff matters without him. I know that for a fact because I’ve lived the last five years of my life learning it.
He leans back in and kisses me, slow and tender.
“Deal.”
19
NATHAN
Stacie opens the front door when I knock.
There’s laughter coming from the living room. It sounds like Evan and his mom.
I follow Stacie inside. They’re on the rug in the living room, photographs spread out in front of them. They both look up and smile when they see me come in.
“Hey what’s going on?”
Theresa keeps sorting through the photographs while she answers. “We’re looking for pictures for a frame I got, you know those collage ones? Come help us, Nate.”
I take a seat next to Evan and kiss his cheek. Stacie giggles and Theresa grins.
The photographs spread out on the floor look like they span decades. Some of them are a bit faded and raggedy around the edges.
“I’m trying to sort them, but these two keep messing them up,” Evan complains.
Stacie and Theresa share a conspiratorial giggle and Evan rolls his eyes.
“Hey, Nate, here’s one of you.” Stacie shoves a picture under my nose and I take it from her.
“There’s loads of you, Nate. I sorted some into a pile there for you to look at.”
I thank her and start looking at the pictures.
The huge stack shows me at various stages of life, between the ages of around three and twelve. Always with Evan. Usually grinning, like we’ve just got up to mischief, or are about to.
“Look at you two in this one,” Theresa says, handing me a more recent one, where we must be about fourteen.
“You’re looking at Evan like he hung the moon.”
“Not much has changed there.”
Evan groans. “Will you two stop?”
I laugh. Theresa’s looking at me likeIhung the moon.
“Here, Ma, this is a good one.” Evan slides her a picture of us all outside the house. Evan and I are around ten years old. Evan’s bike with the shiny Mickey Mouse bell is leaning against the garage door and Evan's dad's work van is parked up on the driveway. Evan’s dad looks healthy. He’s smiling, so is Theresa. Stacie is a toddler in a stroller. For once, she isn’t crying.
“Yeah, that is a good one,” Theresa says, looking at it like she’s back in the moment, living it.
We help her put the chosen pictures in her collage frame and hang it on the living room wall with some tools from Evan’s dad’s toolbox.
