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For the rest of the day, we played in the surf and napped in the sun. Seth had brought along a little blue transistor radio tuned to the pop station, but the songs couldn’t keep my mind off the uncertain. I wanted him to be right here. With me. No more smelly apartment. No more disgusting restaurant to work at. Just my bull and me forever playing in the sand. For the second time that weekend, my eyes filled with tears as Chicago came on the radio.

‘…if you leave me now, you’ll take away the very heart of me…’

I looked back at Seth, who was now propped up on one arm and turned towards me.

‘….oooo no baby please don’t go…’

I tried to smile through my tears. I let Chicago speak for me.

‘…I want you to stay…’

“I can’t, Evan.”

I sniffed as my muzzle became damp with tears.

‘…a love like ours is love that’s hard to find…’

He leaned in and kissed me. “Trust me, Evan. You have to trust what we have.”

I nodded and managed a weak smile.

‘…how could we end it all this way…’

The rest of the day was a hideous blur of repacking and making our way to the dock. Ferry ride. Walk to the station. The train arrived only fifteen minutes late. We didn’t speak to each other until the squeal of brakes signalled our arrival into Jamaica station.

“I have to go, Evan.” He looked small to me at that moment. Like a child in a too-big body. He looked around to make sure no one was watching before brushing my cheek tenderly. With a lurch, the train slowed and we stood in the aisle facing each other. My sadness radiated from me like a campfire.

“I…love you,” I whispered. He touched me on the chin and turned down the aisle as the doors thumped open. He disappeared into the crowd on the platform. I collapsed into my seat and let the tears flow until the conductor announced Penn Station.

Like a zombie, I walked home in the heat. Manhattan seemed even more oppressive in the late afternoon sun. I fumbled for and clumsily put on my sunglasses, if only to hide the fact I’d been sobbing for the last half hour. As if anyone in New York would care. Which they wouldn’t. The stench from my apartment nearly brought me to tears for an entirely different reason.

I skipped going to the Meatpacking District that night. I vowed never to go again. I only had one bull on my mind. I stared at the phone and thought again about how I’d have to trust him. It was this thought that I went to bed with.

Work was more awful than normal. I resented my loud, crude co-workers, along with the rest of society. Why do they get to yammer on about banging their girlfriends but I have to keep my boyfriend a secret? There was no one to talk to. No one to share the roller coaster of love, lust and longing with. My parents? They didn’t find out about me until 1988 and it didn’t go nearly as well as I had imagined it would. They went to their graves having never met…but I’m getting ahead of myself. It was a very different time to be different. An awful time to be different.

It was right after the dinner rush that evening that the assistant manager said I had someone waiting for me outside. I asked if I could take a break. He said I was done for the night. My heart racing, I hung up my stained apron and swiftly navigated the swinging doors and booths. The door to the sidewalk seemed extra heavy as my anticipation swelled.

Seth turned to me at the sound of the squeaky restaurant door. Short shorts and muscle shirt pulled taut across his broad chest, he looked even more amazing to me in the fading twilight than he did back on Fire Island. A smile broke across his maw and he extended his arms out. I raced into his embrace and buried my head between his pecs.

“I love you, too,” he whispered back.

“I’ll never leave you, Seth,” I replied, my words muffled by his shirt.

“And I will never leave you, Evan.”

He didn’t. Neither did I.

Can stories really end with ‘happily ever after?’ Seems trite, doesn’t it.

But it’s what happened.

And we couldn’t be happier.

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Lyrics written by Peter Cetera of Chicago.