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And then I tell him about the next four summers, too. Every possible detail I can think of that I know would have made him smile if he were here.
Jude’s friends—who are now my friends, too. My first year in college, deciding on my major, my years of working at the coffee shop. All the parts of New York I love, that I think he would have loved as well.
I tell him how beautiful, chaotic, wild, imperfect, and perfect the last four years have been.
And then Jude is clearing his throat, too, taking his own turn talking to Quinn with me wrapped in his arms.
“Hi, Quinn. Jude here—the guy who is madly in love with your sister.” A flush immediately spreads through me, starting in my cheeks and reaching all the way down into the tips of my toes. I squeeze Jude’s arms tighter around me with a smile tipping my lips sideways. He continues on, telling his side of our first meeting. “I’m telling you, she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and I’ll be honest, it pissed me right the fuck off—excuse my language—because I knew even then I was done for. No girl was ever going to make me feel the way she had in that quick moment. There was no resisting her pull after that. And the more I got to know her, the less I wanted to fight against the inevitable. So, yeah, I gained a new friend in her that first summer. Fell in love with her in the second. Knew I wanted tolove her for an eternity the third. And while we might’ve lost our way a bit by the fourth, it taught us that we can get through anything together. This summer, though—Quinn, this is the summer I never let her go.”
He clears his throat, and the sheen of tears in his eyes forces mine to rush forward. They fall down my cheeks in tiny rivers of disbelief, and adoration. “I thank you for bringing her to me. And you can rest easy, knowing I will never hurt her, I will always love her, and she will never need someone else to protect her ever again, because I’ll always be here to do so.”
I bury myself in Jude’s hold as his words bury themselves into me.
How did I get so lucky? How did I find someone to love me so patiently? So fiercely? So unconditionally? I guess I didn’t find him so much as I crashed smack-dab into the center of his naked chest four years ago and never looked back. Only toward him, toward my future and toward my everything.
______
It’s here. The day I never thought would come is finally here.Graduation day.
Addy, Cal, and Stacy are in the audience. And Jude is, too, of course. As well as his parents, and his brothers, and Elijah’s fiancé—Bianca—who I adore. Along with Nick, Connor, Antonio, and Isabella and her girlfriend—and Boss and Jameson and Parker, who are on FaceTime with Addy.
Leaning back in my seat to find them, I see them up in the bleachers from over my shoulder and wave. Their section erupts in an explosion of cheers, whistles, waving arms, and eager smiles, and my own smile stretches so wide I’m almost sure it will split in half.
There they are.My heart soars.My own family.One of my own making.
Something I could have only wished for a few short years ago, and now somehow, have made a reality.
I’m more proud of that than anything.
I’ve grown incredibly close to these people in the last four years. Cal and Stacy have stepped in without question to continue filling the parental roles they’ve always occupied for me, even from over a thousand miles away. Isabella and Bianca have become two of my closest friends. Connor, Nick, and Antonio are always there for a wild night out, or in, and Parker and Jameson are always checking in on me if I haven’t checked in on them first. Boss is practically my brother-in-law at this point with him and Addy engaged and getting married this fall—and Addy,Addy,she’s still my best friend, but more than that, she’s my sister in all the ways that matter.
And as if I weren’t lucky enough to have all of them, I get Jude and his family, too. And they are…all the best things rolled into one.Laughter on a random Sunday afternoon, warm hugs on a sun-drenched porch while setting our worries out into the wind, silliness and teasing and hands mussing up my hair the way I imagine all older brothers do. They are vibrancy, and they are safety, and they are unconditional love, and they are wildness and calmness all at once, and they are…everything.
Jude is all of that, and yet he is so muchmore,too.
I’m not sure I could ever accurately put into words how much he means to me. How much he adds to my life, and how much goodness he brings out of me. How much better he continuously makes the world feel, and how much better he makes every day of my life he exists in.
I didn’t know peace until I met him. The kind that sits quietly in your mind, and in your heart, settling your soul.
And now my every day is filled with that peace. With that contentment. With the love we share.
Jude was drafted to New York this past April—not his family’s favorite team, but they won’t complain—and we just settled into our new apartment in New Jersey. After a year of being together long-distance—plane trips and hotel stays and one of us travelling every few weeks to see each other—it’s been amazing to be in one place,together.
The ceremony begins, gently pulling me from my musings, and the rushing roar of chatter dies down until it’s nonexistent.
The dean opens, the salutatorian and valedictorian present their speeches next, and then finally, a widely known musician gives an inspiring commencement speech about the way our experiences shape us, but do not determine our outcomes.“Our pasts do not define us, they free us. They highlight our faults, our fears, our weaknesses, but they, too, highlight our strengths, desires, wants, and needs. What better way to journey into the future than to carry that knowledge with us? A person does not find themselves stranded in a barren desert and think to drink from a well if he doesn’t realize he’s thirsty, after all. So my wish for you all today, is that you take with you your experiences—the good and the bad—and shape them into a life worth living. Into a life worth telling someone about one day.”
Every moment, every word, builds onto the next, making today all the more surreal.
And then eventually, diplomas are passed out, and my name is called, and I climb the short set of stairs onto the stage, walking across it to accept my nursing degree handed to me by the dean. The very moment the textured roll of paper meets my fingertips, emotions swell in my throat, overwhelming. I have had every hurdle stacked against me, every excuse in the book to end up somewhere different, end up someonedifferent, but I didn’t. I ended up here, on stage at my college graduation, with adiploma in my hand and my family cheering me on, and I am so, unbelievably, proud of myself.
Life, I’ve realized, is filled with starts and stops. An infinite number of endings and new beginnings.
The day I met Addy in the first grade, the day we lost Quinn, the day I realized my parents would never love me the way they should, that first breakfast of brioche French toast with a lemon curd drizzle at the Masons’, the morning I left home for good, the summer I spent with a bunch of rowdy football players, the night I met Jude. Our first goodbye, and our second hello.The Fourth of July on his family’s porch. My last summer with the Masons, when I finally started seeing a therapist and taking my medication again.
The many starts and stops of my own imperfect, beautiful life.
And as I throw my cap into the air with my graduating class, life begins anew, again.