Graduation
by Catharine

Graduation

by Catharine

Graduation day had dawned storybook beautiful. The sky was a bright blue, speckled with fluffy white clouds. Birds sang in the trees, and there were flowers dotting the edges of the green lawn. It was warm and sunny, and the huge white tent in the center of campus, erected for the ceremonies, gleamed in the light and billowed in the soft breeze.

The graduating class clustered in the courtyard of the social sciences building, chattering and waiting for the procession to begin. Professors circulated, congratulating their students and asking after future plans if they hadn't heard them yet.

All their projects were done. James had been in his last college play earlier in the semester, in Ben's directing final. He had given a presentation on his paper last week, on how the rise of psychological theories in the 19th and 20th centuries had spawned new acting techniques and experiments. Hiding Boy had presented on his research as well, something about neutrinos that James still couldn't understand after all these months. Sunny had done her concert and handed out her CD, and Keirith had done a performance of some of her writing pieces. There had been Mary's fashion show, which James and Keirith and Lark had modeled in, and Evan's film showing, and all the rest.

Now here they stood in their various versions of finery, ready to leave college and enter whatever parts of the outer world they were each headed toward. Keirith was wearing a flowy summer dress printed with flowers, her mahogany hair loose to her waist and ruffled by the breeze, and Sunny had on dress trousers and a button down shirt, actually very similar to what James was wearing. Hiding Boy was in normal jeans and t-shirt, long hair pulled into a ponytail, and over on the other side of the throng some guy James knew by face but not by name was wearing a lace miniskirt and combat boots.

The four of them stood together, not needing to talk to each other, but chatting in passing with various other people.

The night before, Keirith and Sunny and Hiding Boy had each gone out to dinner with their respective families. Each one had invited James to come along, but he couldn't. How could he pick just one? And he didn't want to intrude on any of the private family dinners. Also... he couldn't even talk to Keirith's father and younger brother without her interpreting for him. He knew they could lip-read a little, but he couldn't understand any of their signing. With Sunny it would just be her and her parents, and while they were nice, he didn't want to be that alone with them. And he figured that it might be a little tense at Hiding Boy's meal with both his mother and his father and step-mother there. Hiding Boy's mother was the only parent who had actually invited James along, and he had turned her down, as he had already turned down his three lifemates.

He'd be seeing all of them when they all went on a large picnic together today after graduation, but at that point there would be so many people, and so much general excitement, that he wouldn't have to explain too much about his own family.

He'd gotten the letter from his mother just a few weeks ago, when he finally sucked up his pride enough to outright ask his parents whether they were coming to his graduation.

Your father has an important meeting for the company that weekend, and I'm tied up with activities at church. I don't think your brother can make it either, but you'd have to ask him yourself. We'll see you when you come by to get your things anyhow.

And that was it. No expressions about how they missed him. No mention of looking forward to seeing him, even though it had been over a year since the last time. Not even any congratulations on graduating from college, on finishing up the huge amount of work required to do that.

It actually made it easier for him, of course, because he hadn't wanted them to come, he hadn't wanted them to see anything. He wanted to be able to control it a little more, the final goodbye, when he went back to collect all his stuff right before they moved down to Washington DC, when he told his parents the truth. But even though it made things simpler, it still made him sad. It was just more proof that they'd already stopped caring about him, let alone caring for him, and that once they knew that all those things they had told him not to do again, they weren't just things he did, or a phase, or a sin, they were who he was... Well, that would be it.

He was looking forward to all the rest of it, all the rest of life that he could see. They were moving to the capital because Keirith had wanted to study deaf education at Gallaudet, and that was the most geographically limited any of them got, so they were all following her. James had just recently heard back that he actually did have a job waiting for him, after sending out so many applications in the area, directing an activist theater group for a queer youth resource center. It was only part time, but he was really excited by it.

Just then Mary appeared, wearing one of the funky dresses she had made for her fashion show, her short hair freshly dyed bright red. She gave Keirith a big hug, and then the rest of them. "We actually did it!" she exclaimed.

Sunny smiled, the wide grin that lit up her face. "We did it last week, you know."

"But now it's more real, somehow."

"I've been finding it more surreal today, actually," Hiding Boy said.

"Where's your sidekick?" Keirith asked, turning to Mary.

"He got distracted by someone else," she replied. "He'll be along in a minute."

"Less, even." Lark slipped up behind Mary, wrapping his arms around her waist. He sighed. "You're all graduating. Who will I spend time with next year?"

"Everyone else on campus," Keirith said, deadpan.

Hiding Boy said something in Spanish that James couldn't follow, and Lark laughed at that. Mary shook her head bemusedly. "Not all at once!" Lark responded.

There was a brief pause, and then Lark fixed James in his gaze, dark brown eyes narrowing. "You. I need to talk to you."

"Oh?" James didn't know what that was about, but he followed Lark off around the corner, to the other side of the building, where they were basically alone. He leaned back against one of the square cement columns.

Lark folded his arms over his chest and tried to look stern. "James, call me. If I find out at 1 am when I talk to Mary, and she only hears because she tried to call Keirith, there's nothing I can do, now is there?"

He meant last night, of course. "I figured you had plans. Besides, there's nothing wrong with spending an evening alone at home."

"No, there isn't, unless you spend the whole time lonely and miserable. You know I'd've been there for you, right, querido?"

"No, I know, but... I was fine."

Lark stared at him for a long moment, silent. Then he leaned forward, reaching up to kiss the taller boy on the side of his neck, before pulling back to look directly at him again. "I hope so."

James nodded.

Lark continued. "I'll be your family. For the rest of the day, I'm yours. Not Mary's, not anyone else's. Your special guest, belonging just to you, no one else."

James stared, because the words used were entirely unlike what Lark would generally say. But he understood how the offer was meant. Everyone else had someone there to focus just on them. And Lark clearly thought he ought to have that as well.

"That's sweet of you, darling, but..."

Lark cut him off. "No buts." James nodded, and Lark leaned forward and kissed him again, on the lips this time, a full and deep kiss that lasted for an incredibly delicious moment. It was only the second time they'd just kissed like that, in the course of conversation.

"Consider it your graduation present," Lark said, when he pulled away.

"I guess it's something I wouldn't get for myself, but do enjoy." James smiled. "Just... be careful around Hiding Boy's little siblings, though. His father was giving him a bit of a hard time in relation to that. All like, ŒAndrew, I don't want your brother and sister seeing anything strange.'"

"Don't worry. I'll be good." He ran a hand through James' hair and down across his shoulder. "Okay. I guess I should go back to the rest of the peons, so I can sit somewhere and actually see this ceremony. I'll find you after."

"Enjoy all the speechifying, dear."

James saw Lark roll his eyes at that as he turned and left.

But he didn't feel so bad anymore. He was reminded of what he had, rather than just what he didn't have, and what he had was a wonderful and amazing thing, wonderful and amazing people. James walked back to his real family, the one that truly loved him, and that more than made up for anything else.