Hold Me Now

Chapter 55: Holding On

Johnny sat around, at his old house, with his best friends. They sat around talking and drinking a couple of beers (they truly limited themselves to just two), as they've always done in the past. Except today is different. For one they're all graduated. For two it's his wedding day, sort of, again. Which is wonderful because the memories of the first one are a little sketchy.

The minute Ava returned home from prom shopping, and told him about that dress, he knew. He knew they needed to reseal their deal. Was he sneaky and a little mischievous about the whole thing? Maybe. But that's the fun part of a surprise, and his wife's life should be full of good surprises. She deserves it.

As he thought about it, that was when Bobby pointed out "We made it, didn't we? We graduated and here we are. Our best friend is getting married, again. We made it through all the hard times, the breakups, the letdowns, the confusion, the fighting, the detentions, and the jealousy. We made it through all of that and here we are." Feeling sentimental, Dutch hugged him. 

Jimmy nodded his head. "Every song ends. So you just enjoy the music until a new one begins. I don't know where we'll all be in five years, but I hope it's together." Dutch hugged him too.

Standing up, Dutch wiped at his eyes and sniffed. "OK, OK. Enough of this mushy talk." He sniffed again. "This is one of those times I'm going to be real. I don't say things like this often, but--- I love you guys. We all have siblings, except you Johnny, but all of you are my family. You're my brothers. At the end of the day, I'd get into a fight for any of you." He looked at Bobby. "You're right Bobby. We made it through to the end, as true friends. We accept each other, but we've also been there for each other--- thick and thin. That's why I know we're all best friends for life."

They saluted each other with beer. Tommy, being Tommy, said, "I was just an innocent boy, then my best friends came along." They all laughed. 

But Jimmy informed him "Innocent Man? Really? You're the sneakiest of us all." Tommy high-fived him. 

This only left Johnny, who hasn't spoken. "We've been friends for so long I can't remember which one of us is the worst influence." He put his beer can down and shared "Everything Dutch said is how I feel. But the truth is I don't like graduation. That means high school is over and each of us is headed in different directions. Jimmy and Tommy are going to UCLA. Dutch, you're going to Stanford. That just leaves Bobby with me at Pepperdine. And we have to start all over again. I don't like that. I don't like the five of us being split up." 

So sitting in Johnny's living room, they made a pact. Even though they're all headed in different directions, "This is not a breakup," Tommy acknowledged. "This is the beginning of new opportunities. I could have a million friends, but there's only four that matter. True friendship is when we can walk in different directions, but still, be side-by-side. And that's you guys." 

No matter where life takes them, they will always have each other. They'll also have the Thursday night dinners at Johnny's house, which is part of their agreement. He just hopes he remembers to tell her about that in the midst of all that's going on.

Hearing the garage door open, they began cleaning up their mess. His mother entered the house and found them straightening up things. Johnny looked at her with questioning eyes. "I just left the spa. Ava is even more beautiful than she already is," Laura bragged.

Not being able to help it, he asked "Was she surprised? It's not too overwhelming for her is it?" He hopes he did the right thing with all of this.