Waiting For You

Chapter Twenty-three

"What matters most is that we finally found each other. And that truth is stronger that the pain of our past".

~John Green

Hunter

I sighed against him, running my fingers through his hair. Alex was lying basically on top of me on the hammock at my grandma's back yard. After eating we had all pretty much dispensed and were waiting for the time to get 17:28, the minute my mother was born.

"Seriously, if you think this is wild, you should see them during Pride," I was telling him. He hummed against me to go on. "They throw these block parties, everyone who isn't homophobic is invited, and they celebrate in the name of all the people who have died so that we can have the liberty to be who we are. Grandma Elaine even puts on face paint and fixes up bracelets for everyone. It's crazy".

"God, maybe I'll see it this year..." he said, moving his head over my chest and putting his ear over my heart. "It must have been great growing up in such a family..."

"Yeah, I never got to go through the phase that made me doubt myself, you know, wonder if and how I could be gay. I never had to feel bad about myself due to my sexuality. That being said, though, coming out to them was still hard". He turned his head up to look at me. "There's that look, that silent look that ruins you. It's not exactly disappointment or anger. But it's awful and no matter how accepting your parents are, you still fear it".

He seemed skeptical for a while until he finally reached up and brushed his lips over mine. I smiled against his lips and stroked his cheek. Without warning he playfully pushed me, rocking the hammock we lay on.

"What was that for?" I asked with a laugh.

"Don't you dare think I have forgiven you for giving me these goddamn hickeys," he growled, making me laugh harder.

"If it makes you feel better they probably think I'm the awful one".

"Probably?!" He pressed his hand against my chest to rise up a little and he shook his head. "You are awful," he assured me.

I giggled in response and pulled him back down on me. I could smell the shampoo on his hair, the white lotus being more prominent this time, and with his cologne, it was intoxicating.

"Tell me a good memory of your family," I whispered to him.

"A good one?"

"There has to be one. Even if it was back then you were only three. What do you think back to nostalgically?" He frowned and hummed against my chest.

"My mother's from New York and she met my father one summer up at the Hampton's. She was there with a few friends and they met at a party and once they met their bond was formed. They used to meet up there, since my father lived here in Cali, while she lived in New York. After my mother finished her studies, they moved here and got married".

"You think back nostalgically to the time when you weren't alive?" I asked as the pause he took grew bigger.

"What? No. That was just so you could understand better," he said back and rolled his eyes. "We used to spend every summer there, at the Hampton's. Every summer until Chris left for university and I started doing my own thing with YouTube. But I often think back on those days..." he paused once again and bit his lower lips, "when we would spend unending hours by the beach, listening to the waves and the seagulls. The days when we went to those rich people parties filled with alcohol we couldn't touch. I mean sure, our parents were strict and kind of absolute about everything we did, but at the end of the day we were a family. And it was nice".