Epilogue
Ollie
Cling! Cling! Cling!
Beside me, Charlie snickered as Grandma clicked the side of her wine glass for my dad and Beau to kiss. Dad glared at her because it must have been the sixth time since the reception started that she was doing this. Beau didn’t mind the attention. He was a cool guy who made my Dad happy. When I thought about how much I’d hated him at first, I felt ashamed of my behavior.
I secretly acted as though I wasn’t as fascinated as my Grandma at the sight of my Dad and his new husband kissing. I would usually be grossed out because this was my Dad, but my curiosity won out. I’d never been kissed by a guy before, and wondered if it was any better than the way it had felt when I’d made myself kiss my past girlfriends. to show them I had interest in them. I usually had zero, but it had been a perfect cover up to where my interest lay.
My father had gone through a massive change, one I liked to see. He was comfortable in his own skin now, something I was still struggling with. Hell, my mind was all kinds of screwed up. Who wouldn’t be after all I had been through? I was still involved with therapy, but some days I felt like I was no closer to being fixed. Beau told me I was looking at it all wrong. I shouldn’t be looking to be fixed but how to accept what happened and moved on. In some ways, he had a point, but when I thought about it, I just wanted to be my old self again. Before my biological dad had cruelly taken my innocence. His trial had been swift, and his verdict had been guilty. His sentence was life in prisonment.
I glanced at the man across the table and found him watching me. I scowled at him because he made me feel confused. Drew was no longer a police officer, choosing to resign after he had been placed on administrative leave for not reporting Eric’s abuse of Beau while he had been wrongfully detained. Yet, here he was, a part of the wedding reception.
I was puzzled at my reaction whenever Drew was around, and he sometimes came around a lot. He used to pop by at the hospital to check on me when I was hospitalized and my body making a slow recovery. I had been puzzled why he dropped by then, and I was puzzled by the way I caught him looking at me sometimes.
It didn’t help that I felt an attraction to him. My fear of him, however, diminished his appeal. Whenever I sexually thought about him, it was a sure way of bringing on a panic attack. I needed to get over them because I hated the way they made me feel insufficient and vulnerable.
I wanted to be normal again.
I couldn’t achieve that normalcy around my family. They treated me too fragile, as though I would break. They watched their words around me and asked me several times during the day if I was okay. Even Principal McLean had allowed me back in school to re-sit my final year, but I had turned down the offer. After my ordeal, school was the last thing on my mind.
I glanced around at the people who made up my family. Dad and Beau at the head table, both looking handsome in their new suits. Grandma and Charlie were also seated at our table. To Beau’s right were his parents who had flown from France to be at the wedding. They were okay people who had put my dad’s fears that they wouldn’t like him to rest.
My grandmother and aunt had refused to attend the wedding though my dad had invited them. They had tried to gain custody of my sister and me, but they’d dropped the idea when they learned I was gay. My sister had flat out told our aunt that she loved our family just the way it was.
I loved them too. Even Beau. As I stole another glance at Drew, I knew I couldn’t hang around. I needed to go away for a while, to get away from all the bad things that had happened. I’d already spoken to my therapist about it, and she had agreed that a change of environment might be exactly what I needed.
The host of the event, some trucker guy dad had formed an alliance with, introduced the first dance. I smiled, watching for Beau's reaction. He had no idea the surprise my dad had for him. Dad had confided in me about it, and I'd felt almost envious the attention he paid to Beau. I wanted that sort of attention from someone too. I glanced at Drew again and damned if he wasn't observing me. He smiled before he turned away and my heart pitter-pattered in my chest.
"And singing live for the first dance, we have Nina Storey with her smash single 'Till There Was You'."
"Oh my God!" Beau exclaimed in shock. He spun around to face my father, his expression so comical everyone laughed. "Oh my God, you didn't, Gordon!"
"It's the first song we danced to," I heard my dad say to him. "You told me you loved that song, so this is my wedding gift to you."
Several people around us who heard my dad's words teared up. If I weren't dead inside these days, I would have done the same.
To grandma's delight, Beau landed another kiss on Gordon, this time a steamy one that made me blush.
My dad stood, and he and Beau walked to the center of the floor to have their first dance as a married couple. Nina Storey's song was beautiful, and I could tell why they loved it. Glancing away from the couple, my eyes locked onto Drew's. Heat seared through me at the combination of the way he watched me and the words of the song:
In the middle of what I thought was truly the end
I met you in a place I felt I could begin again
I barely found the words
but you knew what to say
You felt my fear and then you loved me anyway
I never knew that there was something more
I never thought I'd ever know what all my heart was for
Till there was you
Till there was you
When everything was broken
You were all I knew
Till there was you
Till there was you
Afraid to find my way
You were the one to pull me through
Till there was you
I know the road we walk won't be an easy one
I know the odds are higher loving on the run
You give to me in ways I never knew
You make impossible real
You made it true
Now I know that there was something more
I never thought I'd ever know what all my heart was for
Till there was you
Till there was you
When everything was broken
You were all I knew
There was you
Till there was you
I failed to find my way
Afraid to find my way
You were the one to pull me through
There's so much more than what's in front of me
You opened up my world to who I'm supposed to be
Till there was you…
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