Chapter Text
Although it took quite some time to say goodbye to their families, they’ve finally been set free to join the rest of their class. The sun has almost sunk behind the trees, but the air is still pleasantly warm. After one last hug from Alexis, who somehow was able to bat her eyelashes at Twyla and get one of the flower crowns, David walks hand in hand with Patrick, past the main field and pool and towards the archway. As they step in perfect syncopation, he’s still reliving bits and pieces from their graduation ceremony.
When I first arrived here, I thought I had made a mistake.
The archway feels like his pièce de resistance; a structure he made with Tennessee out of dried driftwood and reeds, bound together and twisted into patterns. It’s massive. As they walk through it, Patrick slows down their pace to stop and admire the intricate detail David poured into it, fingers delicately tracing the dried grasses and pops of wildflowers.
I thought I had signed up for a program that was art intensive, and had a good view.
David watches Patrick take in every detail, his heart pounding in his chest.
Turns out I was incredibly wrong, and nothing went as I planned.
He watches Patrick look out into the valley below, where the tree-line is dotted with swooping festoon lights. In the centre of the field lies a giant bonfire, where their classmates are either dancing or roasting marshmallows.
I don’t normally do well with surprises, but everything that has happened here in the past two years… it’s something I’ve been incredibly grateful for.
Patrick turns to him, a grin peaking at the corner of his lips, then gently tugs David’s hand. He breaks out into a run down the hill, pulling David with him. He feels laughter bubble up and out, uninhibited. All the stress and anxiety leading up to this is quickly melting away.
I have learned so much at Outdoor School, and gained so many beautiful friendships.
Together they collide with Rachel and Twyla, who wrap them up in hugs and giggles. Twyla adorns them each with a flower crown.
This is where I feel safe. This is home.
David feels himself exhale for the first time in a while, taking in all that’s around them. Music blasts from a speaker sitting at the door to one of the cabins, thanks to a very long extension cord. (Once Roland set it up, he joined Ray and Ronnie to set up camp in the main hall.) The teachers won’t be coming out unless there’s an emergency, so the night belongs to them. Everyone reeks of bug spray and campfire, but in a way that’s comforting and familiar. And oddly enough, he wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s just one person who’s missing.
He scans over the bonfire, but Stevie is nowhere to be found. He turns to look towards the hill, and a small silhouette with flowing hair slowly stalks towards the archway. Quietly, he slips away from Patrick and the girls and races up the grassy knoll.
“What are you doing?” Stevie quips, crossing her arms. Her blazer has been abandoned, her shirt a few more buttons loose, and sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She’s biting her lip, and she looks close like she’s close crying, but there’s something in her gaze that has softened. She doesn’t even bother to point out how out of breath David is.
“Is everything okay?" He pants, hand on his knees. "I thought you seemed upset earlier.”
“Mm yeah when my Aunt decided not to show up to my graduation? I’m over it.”
“No you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
David sighs and pulls her in for a hug. And today, Stevie doesn’t protest. He feels her sniff into his chest, then mumble something inaudible.
“Use your words please,” David pushes and holds her back at arms length.
“Your dad said I’m staying at Rosewood for a while.”
“Why?” David’s eyebrows thread together.
Stevie sniffs again, effectively avoiding his gaze. “I just got off the phone with Maureen.”
“Oh.”
“She left for Saskatchewan.”
“Oh,” David’s face falls slack and he wraps his arms fiercely around her, immediately understanding all that is carried within that simple sentence. “You know I don’t do well with roommates, but for you I’d make an exception.”
Stevie chuckles wetly into his shirt, squeezing him tighter. “You better. You put my art up on your fucking bedroom walls.”
His head rests on top of hers as they start to sway slightly in the evening glow. David doesn’t know how to feel. It’s a mixture of joy and pride that he’s finished school and completed something he put his whole self into, but it’s also a means to an end. He remembers something Rachel told him Patrick said to her, something about “When did life become so real?” He didn’t think anything of it at the time. To David and Stevie, things have always felt a little real, a little too much.
This is where I feel safe. This is home.
But he can only stay here holding on to Stevie for so long. She doesn’t do well with mushy. “Do you need to escape right now, or do you want to go join the party?” he whispers into her ear.
“I need to not think for a solid five years.”
Wordlessly, David guides her down the hill. At this point, the class is unfolding and lighting up the paper lanterns they built that morning. A morning that seems like an entire year ago.
Patrick jogs up to them all smiles. “You guys ready?” he asks, holding an unlit paper lantern in his hands. David feels caught in the middle. When he dreamed of doing this, of course he dreamed about seeing Patrick on the other side of him, holding up a paper lantern with him, wearing a happy glow on his face. But his best friend needs him right now.
“Actually,” David clears his throat, “I think I need to do this with Stevie, I’m sorry.”
Patrick looks a little deflated and confused, but nods in understanding. He was, after all, the one that pulled up a chair for her between him and David at dinner after Maureen didn’t show.
“Are you sure about this?” Stevie whispers as they go to grab their own paper lantern. David nods profusely. Of course he’s sure.
David takes a piece of kindling from beside the fire and holds it under the block at the bottom of their lantern. It quickly catches the flame and gradually starts to pull towards the sky, anchored down by the light tugging of their fingertips. He looks across to Stevie, glassy-eyed and tired, but somehow still smiling back at him. David follows her gaze as she starts to look around to their classmates for a signal.
Suddenly, everything has reached a quiet stillness. Even Ted and Miguel have stopped bickering. Someone stopped the music, so there’s just the gentle hum of cicadas. It’s a collective holding of breath, as everyone awaits the possibilities that lie ahead, beyond high school. Sure, they still have summer. But right now, this marks a moment. A definite change.
“Everyone ready?” Twyla asks in a tentative, patient voice.
“Fuck no,” Ted throws back.
Half the group gasps, because this might be the first time they’ve heard Ted swear, while everyone else laughs in relief.
Twyla counts them down from three, and fingertips are ever so slowly lifted off the feather light paper. They watch the sky above them slowly fill with floating dots of amber that rise upwards and drift to the northeast. They laugh when someone’s lantern gets caught in one of the trees. David bumps Stevie’s hip with his own, a proud smile on his face. And she smiles right back. It feels like some cheesy moment in a teen movie, but it’s a moment that’s all their own.
Once every lantern has drifted beyond the tree-line and and have become small dots in the night sky, someone rushes to crank the music. David watches everyone start to dance around him, lost under the glow of the bonfire. He catches Patrick’s eye and his heart skips a beat. They haven’t been properly alone since Patrick came to see him in Fireside before the ceremony.
Patrick’s eyes are a glowing dark whiskey colour, and the way he’s looking at David is almost too cruel to reckon with. (In the best possible way). They share a small, soft smile between the two of them before David surges forward through the crowd of his classmates, and grabs Patrick by the hand. A devilish grin breaks out on Patrick’s face. David can tell how much he loves whenever they show the world how much they’re theirs. Patrick must think David just wants to dance together, because he seems a little stunned when David tugs him out of the dancing crowd and towards the trees.
David’s heart is in his throat. He wordlessly guides Patrick towards the small cabins on the outskirts of the field, winding around the corner to duck behind one of them.
“What are we-” Patrick’s sentence is cut off by David pinning him up against the cabin wall. The shadows from the festoon lights hanging above them dance on his face. It’s there where David kisses him soundly, trying to pour in all his feelings into a single gesture.
When he pulls back, Patrick is stunned. David feels the pull of strong hands on his hips, though Patrick’s face still might be buffering a bit.
David takes a deep breath, and starts to feel the tears well up in his eyes. “I love you,” he whispers in the night.
For the slightest second, his brain spirals into thoughts of Patrick not having heard him, or potentially even laughing in his face. ( That’s how long you took to say it?? ) But no sooner can David begin to imagine all the different ways Patrick would react, does he get pulled firmly into Patrick’s space.
“I love you, too,” Patrick says into his ear, and kisses that sweet spot just below it.
And they cling onto each other, kissing and whispering soft secrets in each other’s ear. There might be endless waves of change on the horizon, but David knows that he’s capable. And Patrick is too. They all are. But for now, all he has to do is keep looking at what’s right in front of him.