Lights like Stars [BoyxBoy]

Epilogue

I woke up in a bright room. The lights were too bright, making an annoying buzzing noise. My eyes stung. I blinked rapidly, and then looked to my side. Garrett was sitting in a chair next to me, looking at his phone. I reached my hand out.

He sat up quickly and grabbed it. "Alex," he said. "I'm so glad you're awake." 

"Am I in the hospital?" I asked. "I guess it's obvious."

He chuckled. "Yeah, you are." He had a bruise on his face. I ran my fingers along it. 

"Where's my dad?" I asked.  

"They arrested him," he said. "I mean, enough people saw, they have footage." He squeezed my hand. "We can deal with that when the time comes."

"Right. When can I go home?" I asked. 

He smiled. "Let me go get the doctor."

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Garrett graduated cum laude, with honors. I graduated with a 3.7 GPA, which I was proud of. I made the Dean's List my last semester, the first time ever. They threw a band banquet for us. Garrett, Cassidy, and I won awards. They had everyone who was graduating come up and receive a senior recognition award, and say into the microphone what our graduation plans were. 

Garrett went before me. He said, "I will be attending Berkeley in California to receive a master's, and getting married in August."

I went a few minutes later. "I will be moving to California to put my degree to use...and I will be getting married in August." Everyone applauded when we both mentioned getting married.

On graduation day, Garrett's ceremony was before mine. Cassidy and I were in the audience, along with his guardian Richard. We took photos of him receiving his diploma. We got lunch, and then came my ceremony. After mine, we got dinner. It was nice getting to know Richard. He told me he listened to my recordings from when Garrett and I went to Chicago. He said he could set me up with a friend in California if I was interested in getting into the music scene. I was interested.

Garrett and I stayed in town until our wedding, August 1st.

It was a low maintenance wedding. We got married at the memorial union on campus, half of the band was invited. It was more of a reception than a wedding anyway. We mostly just wanted to celebrate and make the commitment.

Three days later, we flew to California.

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I had never been to California or the west coast. So we explored around. We went to L.A., Monterey, Sacramento, and finally San Francisco. The whole place was beautiful. We were renting an apartment in the Castro, which was the gayborhood in the city, not far from Garrett's classes. 

The apartment was huge. I felt bad about being able to hardly contribute any money, and that I would as soon as I found a job. Garrett said not to worry, he had plenty of money. Since graduating college, his guardian gave him a decent amount of money from a trust fund. The apartment was three bedrooms. A kitchen, half bath, living room, and bedroom downstairs, then two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. It was amazing. Garrett said he wanted to make a lot of friends and host them. We were sharing the master bedroom. The other bedroom was going to be his study. The bedroom downstairs had a futon in case we ever had people over to stay the night, but otherwise he told me to make it whatever I wanted. I decided to make it my mini studio, to see what I could create while I was there.

I looked into dance studios mostly, and got a job as a children's dance instructor. It wasn't ideal, but it was fun and made me feel less bad about not contributing.

As the weeks went by, Garrett and I did make new friends. We attended LGBTQ events in the neighborhood, held a Halloween party for our new friends, eventually adopted a dog. We celebrated Christmas in Chicago, went to Hawaii during Garrett's spring break, and went back to campus for Cassidy's graduation. She got a job in Seattle, so she was going to be on the west coast as well. We helped her move in actually and explored the city. We all went back to campus in October for alumni band during homecoming. 

The years started to go by. Garrett graduated, and we decided to buy a house instead. Cassidy got engaged and we were matrons of honor for her. We were declared godparents when she had her first daughter. She eventually moved to northern California, so we visited once a month. We went to alumni band when we could. I finally got around to making music. It didn't take long for me to get into drag. Suddenly I was a favorite drag queen in the city. 

The years went by, like I said. Garrett and I were taking our thirties well. I made music that I loved. My family was an after thought. They never bothered me. 

Now, we're looking into adoption, or surrogacy. Cassidy offered to be a surrogate if we so desired. Garrett and I were only in the early stages of thinking about it, though.

For our ten year anniversary, we took a trip to Medellin, Colombia. We sat on the mountaintop, looking at the city lights together, like we had done so many years ago. This time, I was't going to try and drink myself to death. This time, I was going to look forward to the future, a family with the love of my life.

We sat in that city, looking at the lights, look at each others eyes.

Lights like stars.

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The end.