He drops his hand, but I catch him before he can get too far away, pulling him back in with a hand on his waist. My pulse kicks up a notch, but I push against the nerves, tired of being ruled by things I’m afraid of. Desmond allows me to bring him closer, a slightly quizzical look on his face. When I lift my free hand to his cheek, fingers shaking slightly, he smiles.
“You don’t have to, Jack,” he whispers. I wonder what it is he can see on my face, to know exactly what I’m trying to do; to know how nervous I am.
I want to tell him that I want to. I want to tell him that he’s my safe space, and I think I might have fallen in love with him the first time I saw him. It’s taken me a long time to catch up, but now I’m here. Instead, I kiss him.
Desmond tastes like the sea. He presses closer until there’s nothing between us and his body is flush with mine. I’m burning with the desire to do more—move my hand, kiss him deeper, hold him so close we’re one instead of two. I don’t know how to manage any of it, so I settle for small kisses. A press of the lips against each corner of his mouth, one to his nose and another to his chin. He sighs when I make my way back to his mouth, fingers pressed tight where his hands are cupping my ribs.
Needing space enough to breathe away the lightheadedness, I lean back slowly. Desmond follows, chasing my lips. I’m dizzy with a heavy mixture of nerves, relief, and affection. When his eyelashes flutter upward, revealing big brown eyes, I think about the sea glass in my pocket. It’s not the only beautiful and rare thing in the room. He gazes at me, silently cataloguing whatever tells I wear on my face. When he smiles—lips soft and plump and kissed byme—I relax.
“I can stay?” I ask quietly, leaving only enough space between us for the words.
“Please,” Desmond responds, arms sliding around my waist as he hooks his chin over my shoulder and sighs.
EPILOGUE
Jack
Nine Years Later
Desmond doesgreat the morning of graduation right up until the moment we start taking photographs. Parker, standing in front of the high school sign in his cap and gown, gestures him forward.
“Come on. We need some together,” he says.
I wait as Desmond moves to stand next to Parker, mouth pinched at the corners the way it gets when he’s trying not to cry. When Parker puts his arm around his waist, he takes a deep enough breath for me to see the rise and fall of his chest. I wait for him to meet my eye before smiling—you can do it, I tell him silently. He smiles back, and I hold the cellphone up.
“Okay. On three?—”
“Wait,” Parker interrupts, laughing a little bit. “You have to be in here, too.”
The first burn of tears pricks behind my own eyes now, asI lower the phone. Desmond looks at me, still holding on to Parker like he’s the only thing keeping him standing.You can do it, his brown eyes silently send back my direction.
“Do you want me to take them?”
I turn and look down at a young woman in a cap and gown, blond hair shiny in the sun. Another graduate, obviously, but God she looks so young to me. Like Parker still does. She’s probably waiting for us to get a move on so she can take her own pictures. Clearing my throat so I don’t do something embarrassing like burst into tears, I try to smile in a way that can’t be mistaken for a grimace.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ll get some both ways,” she says, demonstrating tilting the phone between portrait and landscape.
“Thank you,” I repeat.
Parker grins at me as I approach, accidentally knocking his hand into his cap when he lifts an arm to put it around my shoulders. My face heats as I look at the girl waiting with the camera raised. Suddenly, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to smile. I hate having my picture taken, and I’d pretty much talked myself into the belief that I wouldn’t have to be in many today. Graduation photos are for parents and graduates—Parker and Desmond. I’d planned on being the one behind the camera, making sure to get all the angles and the best lighting. The selfie Parker took of me and him early this morning was the last time I thought I’d be asked to participate in this way.
Desmond’s fingers creep across my lower back, brushing gently. Even though I know today has been hard for him—know he didn’t sleep last night, and is fighting against the weight of sadness—he’s still making sure I’m okay. Reaching behind myself, I find his fingers and squeeze,before putting my hand on Parker’s back. His graduation gown is warm from the sun, his shoulder bony beneath my palm. He shot up like a weed four years ago, his skinny childish frame stretching into a lanky teenage one seemingly overnight. He’s taller than Desmond, now, and nearly as tall as me.
“I wish he’d stay small forever,” Desmond had admitted to me in bed one night, the room dark and the sheets warm.
I understood that to mean he wanted Parker to stay a kid, forever. To need him, forever. I can feel the same desire right now, trying to shove down the joy of the day and replace it with the knowledge that this is the beginning of the end. The first day of adulthood and freedom and Parker no longer sitting next to me at the dinner table every night.
Somehow, we make it through the pictures. I don’t look at them just yet, knowing my face is probably closest resembling a beet than a human man. I probably should have pushed to be left out of the photos.
The morning passes fairly quickly even though the ceremony itself seems to take ages. Desmond and I are seated in the special section for parents, the sun hot overhead and burning away the foggy dawn. His fingers stroke the back of my neck, brown eyes as warm as the day when mine meet them.
“We should have brought sunscreen,” he says, voice low.
“Probably,” I agree. One would think after the amount of time I’ve spent at the beach with him and Parker, that I’d have developed some sort of tan. But no, it’s burned alive or nothing for me, it seems.
Desmond lowers his hand to my leg, fingers reaching for mine. We sit like that through the entire ceremony, holding on to one another for dear life, hands hot and sweaty, butneither of us willing to let go. Somebody should have warned us that high school graduation was going to be awful.
