Home for the Summer (BOYXBOY)

The Ocean Before Us: Part 1

It was a long walk from the dorms to the ocean, but we took it when we could.

Nico might've liked it more than I did. He surfed when the tide was right, and brewed in the sunlight when it wasn't. He packed sandwiches in ziplock bags. He left his textbooks at school.

And, I breathed it in. The tide, the newness of it all. The paradise we'd built together. I breathed in our corner of the world and held it in my lungs, memorizing how it felt to wake up and be full.

"What happens after this?" Nico asked me, our limbs half buried in sand and the sun half-tucked behind the sea.

"After this?"

"We're out of college in two years. What happens afterward?"

I turned to look at him- his freckled skin and deep eyes. "I don't know. You'll probably get your doctorate, and I'll probably work." I paused. "Wanna move in together?"

"Yes," he said, without a beat. "After college?"

"Next semester. We can find an apartment."

"You wanna move in with me now?"

I shrugged. "Why wait?"

It was a shitty one bed, one bath, and I owed it my entire life. We strung polaroids across the walls of us, and Benji, and Izzy, and Rowan, and Lilli, and college friends- but mainly us. We filled the space with potted plants and towering stacks of books. We settled silent rules about which way the throw pillows should face or how the kitchen should be cleaned. And, we were happy.

When Benji visited, he brought laughter through the door. His days were spent coaching surfers on the water, but he gave us his nights. Rowan and Izzy popped by for dinner parties and birthdays. Lilli facetimed from Boston.

In the spring, we adopted a cat. In the summer, we painted the walls. In the fall, we fought, and took a break, and found each other again.

Nico didn't join the hockey team, but he attended every game. The ice moved him differently then, lulling him to sleep instead of shaking him upright.

After we graduated, Nico went back for his doctorate, and I began my publishing house from our apartment. Mountain and Sea Publishing. It was a slow process, and left me spiraling more times than I could count. I could feel me and Nico's dynamic twisting. He was stable, focused, and I was a crumpled up mess. He picked me up.

"Why do you bother with me?" I asked him, three glasses of wine and about 50 business errors in. "It's no use."

"You've done this with me for years, Apollo."

"We aren't 17 anymore. I should know better."

He smiled at me, his arm falling around my shoulders. "It's still our first try at life. We mess up."

"I don't know what to do anymore. It's all just... impossible. I can't go back on anything."

"Then go forward."

"How?"

Nico's eyes never lost their depth. I could stare into them for lifetimes. "I don't know," he said. "You just do. There's no other choice. Forward, and that's it." He ran his hands through my hair. "That's life."

When he got his doctorate, Nico was offered a job as a marine histologist in Oakland. We sold the apartment that had nursed our 20's and found a much nicer, two bed, two bath. We spent a year in that apartment- drinking coffee on the balcony, walking a mile to the shore, flipping pancakes in the kitchen- before he proposed.

On a trip back to visit my mother, in the gazebo on Dowry lane, Nicolas could barely get through a speech he'd prepared without crying. I cried too, and so did my mom, and Benji.

Two years after the wedding, we bought property just outside of Oakland, big enough for a new house and a full garden. Rowan designed the entire 4 bed, 3 1/2 bath thing. We fell in love with our quiet, tiny, perfect life.

During Thanksgiving, Benji brought his new daughter to the house. We spent the entire day watching her smile up at us before Nico leaned over and whispered, "We should have one, yeah?"

The adoption process was extensive, and tedious, but Camden was worth it. Our entertainment room turned into a nursery, and we began to fill in the gaps of our house with music, and laughter, and family. We felt even, like the tide had washed us over and left us level.

It took effort. It hurt. But, we grew.