mostly nonsense

CCII.

He says it without thinking, and for a moment, you’re sure he’ll take it back, qualify it somehow. But he doesn’t; his sweater is stupid and the song that’s playing is forgettable and he’s smiling at you like he’s right where he wants to be. You think maybe it’s where you want to be, too - not back in the city you’ll one day call home, but right here, sitting with him at a cheap wooden table on a Tuesday afternoon, and you swallow your caution with your coffee and say it back.

To call this a beginning would be a betrayal; the two of you began a long time ago, the first time he held your hand and took you from lost to found. And it’s not the end; though that will come, one day, be it a month from now or half a century away.

This past year, it’s been one of fear - fear of loss, of the future, of rejection. But if you’ve ever known one thing to be true, it’s that this moment would come; this is what kept your back tall and your chin high while the world shouted horrible things, this is the glimmer you’ve followed on your way back to hope,

and so the boy who’s been so lonely has no fear when it comes to the boy who loves him back.