Hold my hand

1

Three years have passed since you last heard from us.

A lot has happened in those three years.
Nate would turn 23 on the 18th August, which is in exactly a month and I would be 22 in 3 and a half months, to be exact on the 1st November.

Currently I am at Nate's graduation. He managed to get his undergraduate degree in psychology in 2 years instead of 4.

In the span of one year he had also gotten his master, and now here we sat, clapping for my incredible boyfriend.

I still had one more year of university until I could graduate. Sometimes I felt dumb compared to Nate but I tried not to show him that. I know how much he had to learn and do to get this far.

Proud he came down from the stage and over to me and Mariella.

"Hey my loves!" He gave me a short peck and grinned.

We both hugged him and left the auditorium.

"Time to celebrate!"

Mariella just turned 12 on the 5th of May, and soon she will go to High school. She skipped two years of middle school because of her knowledge and I'm so proud of her!

Everything in life is working out at the moment.

Though Nate and I fight a lot more these days. It started about three months ago, as he got his very first job in a doctor's office.

He had an internship there and they really liked him and his work so now he got a full time job as a therapist while working his way towards his doctorate!

Since then Nate has changed a little...but maybe he was just super stressed. Now that he could graduate everything should be fine, right?

I hope we can spend more time together, like we used too, especially to celebrate his graduation!

We arrived at the Diner, where Eli was already waiting to squish the life out of us. We had insisted she could join us at the graduation but she deemed the environment would have been to overwhelming for her.

"Hey...okay...hey Eli!" I laughed and hugged her back.

She grinned at me and walked us to our usual table.

"Congrats Nathaniel! We are so proud of you!" Her eyes welled up with tears, ready to spill and Nate had to stand up and hug her to calm Eli down.

"I couldn't have done it without your support Eli. Thank you so much for believing in me." She patted his cheek.

"Na, na. The one you should be thanking is Lumi." She smiled warmly at me and took my hand to give it a quick squeeze.

Her husband had passed away a half year ago, so we were her family now.

She took a lot of care for Mariella when Nate and I had university assignments to do and sometimes Eli would stay over at our house.

The art studio was now transformed into a guest bedroom for her and I had moved all of my art supplies upstairs into the unused room with the balcony. (Sorry I love talking about houses😅 I made a Pinterest board for their house if you are curious how it looks. Link in my bio.)

Eli would never say that she felt lonely but I can see it when I look into her eyes.

Once bright and lifely blue eyes were now dull and rather greyish.

I just hoped we could be enough of a support for her.

"Now, what do you want to eat?"

She smiled again and started to write down our order on a note pad.