Luke and I stood across from each other. We both wore the best suits we could find. He smiled that smile that made you want to hug him and never let go.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this Man and another Man in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in Paradise, and into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined.
Luke will you take Michael as your husband?"
He looked at me for a minute and studied me as if deciding. "Of course I do." He began to hold my hand.
"Michael do you take Luke as you husband?"
I smiled and nodded eagerly. We exchanged the rings and the priest continued, "I know pronounce you man and, well, man."
Before the priest could say anything else, luke and i were already kissing.
This was it. The beginning of a new chapter. "I love you luke, forever and always." He hugged me tight and whispered, "forever and always."
- - -
After a year of marriage luke had finally come clean. When he was a teen, he'd gone to the doctors and they'd found a tumor on the left side of his brain. After multiple medical treatments that i really didn't understand, it disappeared. Until about two years ago. That's why he'd been crying the night he disappeared, not because of his mom, because he'd been called up and was told it was back. It's a surprise he'd even lived this long. Four years. We all knew he was fading though.
Near the end, he just lost his will to live. I still love him though. Even a year after his death. It's been about 6 or 7 years since we met and I was never as happy as i was with him.
- - -
I placed the flowers on his grave. It'd been ten years since we met. Time had gone by in the blink of an eye. Yet and still, i love him. His beautiful blue eyes, his melodic laughter, his smile that could make a heart beat 10x faster.
"I miss you." I whisper. "Michael," Ashton said putting his hand on my shoulder, "you know he loved you so much, right?" I nodded and looked at Ashton, Calum, and their daughter, Reed. Reed was twelve and they'd adopted her a couple years back. "We love you, michael." Calum said embracing me. "I love you guys to. I just really miss him. I just..." I sighed heavily.
We walked away, but I glanced back to look at the tombstone. I finally whispered the words I was most afraid of, "I love you luke, forever and always, but I have to let go."
