“It’s okay. Just don’t forget about the assholes over at the Bad Boyfriend Council who would force celibacy on a seventeen-year-old with a cute boyfriend.” Theo pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Speaking of, I should probably give you your birthday present. It’s not done, but I promise you, I have every intention of finishing it.”
He pulls up a video and presses play. It’s an animation. There is a compulsion of gryphons flying across the side. The one with feathers my favorite shade of blue is on the right until he torpedoes to the left. The narrative of one gryphon moving to the left of three gryphons would make zero sense to anyone else, but it means everything to me. It means he pays attention to the way I move, to my favorite color. It’s only fourteen seconds long and probably counts more as a clip than it does a video, but I know how much time goes into a single frame, and that’s time he took away from himself for me. This clip means my favorite human loves me.
“I swear I’m going to add more to it,” Theo says, probably feeling shitty because I keep staring at him without telling him how much I love it. “I have some ideas, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. Do you like it?”
I throw myself at him, and damn it, I’m not letting go.
Saturday, June 27th, 2015
After a morning of feeding and naming ducks in Central Park (Daffy was an asshole who wouldn’t share) and an afternoon eating ice cream at the High Line, I follow Theo back into his apartment—right as his family, my parents, and Wade shout, “Surprise!”
He turns to me. I play-punch him in the chest.
“Surprise, Theo,” I say.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” he says to the room. “Good job, everyone.”
“It’s a surprise party,” Denise shouts, smiling widely enough that I notice she lost that wobbly tooth in the bottom row.
“You, little lady, are a genius,” Theo says. “But why am I having a surprise party?”
His mother steps over and sweeps him into a hug, rocking with him. “It’s your graduation party. Griffin’s idea.”
Theo steps back and turns to me.
“It sucks that you have to wait four more years to graduate,” I say.
Theo claps his hands urgently. “I’m going to need to ask everyone to go home so I can have the entire place alone with my boyfriend.” There are a couple of laughs but mainly just blushing and wide-eyed looks from our parents. “Please leave all the gifts.” He looks around. “Wait. There aren’t any gifts? New mission! Please leave and go buy me something nice and return in a couple of hours. Thank you.”
No one leaves to buy Theo gifts.
His parents offer him a sip of celebratory wine, maybe half believing it might actually be his first sip, but he passes once he sees me holding a green graduation cap I bought off some graduating senior earlier this month. Theo lowers his head and lets me crown him. Everyone stops what they’re doing to get photos of Theo in his cap. Russell encourages our squad to get together for what he calls a “family photo.” I wonder how much of a family we’ll be once it’s just Wade and me and Theo is in California, but right now we’re at our tightest since Theo and I came out.
“You’re a mind reader,” Theo tells me.
“Not really,” I admit. “A lot of your confusion about whether you should stay or go had to do with not seeing high school through until graduation. You never got your glory.”
“And now I’m saying peace out before I can be declared valedictorian of my year,” Theo says, as if graduating school a year early isn’t a bigger win. “I’m sure Suzanne Banks will get it now, but she’ll always be salutatorian in my heart.”
“Check your pillow.”
“Is something there?”
“If Wade is good at favors, there should be.”
“It’s there,” Wade says.
Wade and I follow Theo into his room where he rushes to pick up the fake diploma I created for him:
theodore daniel mcintyre valedictorian and
the most badass human in the universe
TODAY
Thursday, December 1st, 2016
Once Jackson gets off the phone with his mother, I’ll wish him a happy birthday. It’s five in the morning in Santa Monica, but I’m not surprised that Ms. Lane is the kind of mother who wakes up this early to call her son on his birthday. I’m impressed she beat me to the punch, considering Jackson was sleeping six feet away from me.
I sit up in bed, thinking about how December is kicking off with a few firsts. It’s the first month you’re not alive, which also means we’re approaching one whole month without you. It’s Jackson’s first time celebrating his birthday in New York, away from his parents. It’s the first snow day from school—a cancellation we were happy to receive last night from the school board even though I hate blizzards.
I, uh, need a fourth first . . .
Okay, okay.