They say they are Sadness, Loss and Grief.
But surely one of them is Love.
Surely one of them will open her arms
to me when I approach,
and wrap me up tight against her,
protecting me from her sisters
and the way that I have come.
Surely one of these women
will offer me comfort,
as far as I have traveled,
surely one will show me which is the next path.
The great tragedy of a journey
is I can only see to the next corner,
but at the same time, I must trust
that Love stands only two corners away.
And when I arrive on that second bend,
and find her twisted siblings waiting,
I can only choose to continue on,
in hopes that Love waits past two more corners still.
Or else I must join Sadness, Loss, and Grief,
and wait until the day Love finds me.”
Martin’s mouth hung open as he tried to hold on to the threads of what he’d just heard. He glanced around the room. Jess had her head resting softly on Brian’s shoulder. Tim had one arm around Penny. The air felt heavy as people stirred and started to applaud, breaking the quiet spell of Seb’s words.
Carol Anne handed Seb a glass, and he lifted it.
“Thank you everyone for finding us today, and to those of you who worked so hard to help us bring this together. And I’d like you all to raise a toast to Martin, who,” Seb’s smile quirked in the way that always made Martin’s skin prickle “is my love, and without whom I would not have found this path. Cheers!”
Cheers and more applause filled the room. Cassidy giggled and hugged Martin, but she stepped back as Seb came to join them.
“That was . . .” Martin still couldn’t process it all. He’d need to get Seb to read it to him again later.
“It was okay?” Seb asked, looking uncharacteristically shy. Martin launched himself at Seb and pulled him in for a hard kiss that could only begin to express what hearing Seb’s words felt like.
“I love you too,” he said. He had just enough time to see the white of Seb’s grin before they were kissing again, despite the people milling in the gallery around them.
There was a cough, and Martin and Seb pulled apart to find Oliver standing close by, a bemused expression on his face.
“Seriously?” Seb grumbled. “Do you have an alert system for when there’s a kiss that needs to be interrupted?”
