The day after high school graduation is supposed to be a happy and wonderful day for everyone. Yet for me, it was not as much elation as realizing that the thing I had been considering for over a year could be put into action, and that no one—not even my mother—could stop me from doing it this time.

It had been two months since my eighteenth birthday. I was still comfortably attending public school, for my mother’s threats of military school had never come to pass. I had been the good little boy I had promised, getting home from school and work immediately after I had finished. It had done nothing for my already nonexistent social life, but I didn’t mind it. I was really just biding my time.

I knew where James was. It was one of the pleasant consequences of the computer era—one could find nearly anything one wanted on the internet. A person just needed to know where and how to look.

He was teaching at another high school just outside San Francisco. He switched to teaching tenth grade after the move, before which I am almost certain that he went to stay with his sister, after all I had heard about her. I wondered if, being an interior designer, she had been a little pissed about all the work she had done on his apartment, only to have him abandon it. I still wondered about a lot of things.

I was glad that after James left, I had started actually saving up for a car. I had had a lot of money put aside even before, but I had never dared give a name to what I was saving it for—I had just had very little reason to spend it. I had even somehow convinced my mother to help a bit with the payment, and she had given me my car for my birthday that year. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but it drove, and that was all that really counted. I didn’t want to hear the ‘single parent, money issues’ diatribe from my mother any more.

I loved my mother all the same because with time to reflect, I began to realize that she had dealt as best as she could with the situations that had been handed to her. My father had left; she had raised me alone. I had been a little delinquent child; she had dealt with that also accordingly. The trust between us had been gone for years, but the love was still there. She was, after all, my mother.

But it was a few days after graduation, right in the middle of June, that I decided to leave. I told my mother that I was just going on some sort of road trip to check out the UC Berkeley campus, to which I had been accepted. I think she bought it, but even if she didn’t, I was legally an adult and she couldn’t really say anything of the matter. And I was going to check something out, though in all fairness it wasn’t a university campus but a certain tall, dark haired teacher of yore. He would be twenty-seven now.

I had changed a lot in my own right. My hair was a bit longer, my clothes a bit different, and I had grown a few more inches, bringing me to a more comfortable five foot nine. I wasn’t quite as thin as I had been at sixteen, though I knew that I would never be truly muscled—due mostly to my body type. I had filled out a bit, however; “grown into my frame” as my mother put it.

So it was that day in June that I got into my car and started on the long drive toward San Francisco. It would take quite a good many hours, but I knew that it was a drive that I could make in less than a day, barring any horrible traffic jams along the way. I had better arrive there on time because I had already booked a hotel room ahead of time.

The drive was long and uncomfortable, but I could bear worse, and I knew that. After these quite unpleasant hours, I finally arrived, and drove in a long circle around the school where I knew James Carlton now taught. It was long after school hours, though, and I assumed that they, like my school, would have already gone on summer vacation.

I stopped my car on the street in front of the school, considering what I would do. The same quick work that had gotten me the address to James’s current workplace had also gotten me the address to his apartment, though I was loath to go there right away, especially after all that time in a car. Plus, it was getting to be a little late, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to show up at a time that could possibly aggravate the older man. As it was, I wasn’t sure how he would react to my sudden appearance, even in the best of circumstances.

I drove down to my hotel and checked in, noting a small coffee house near the hotel as I drove past it. I had a feeling I would be really needing it in the morning.

I lay down in the bed inside my hotel room, thinking. I wondered what James would be like, after all this time. It wasn’t that much time really, I realized, but I had changed quite a great deal since the last time I had seen him, and I wondered if he had as well. I wondered if he still had that controlled, somewhat proper exterior and that nervous side hidden beneath. I wondered if he still wore those wire-framed glasses and button-down shirts all the time. I wondered if he still wore full suits with ties to work every day.

But mostly, I wondered how he would react to my presence. In all the times I had thought of this situation, I had never gone so far as to imagine what he would think after he saw me. I had gone through everything pertaining to how to get here and how to find him, but the consequences had never really crossed my mind.

I didn’t doubt that he would remember me. As I had caused a major change in his life, I was sure that I would still be a memory in his mind. But I wondered: after seeing me again, would he be content to leave it a memory or would he want to change it? Make other memories? I turned onto my side and fell asleep quickly, my mind still racing with the possibilities.

I woke up early the next day; my internal clock undoubtedly still set to school time. It was just around the time I would usually wake up for school, anyway, and I got up, showered, and dressed quickly, feeling a distinct need for caffeine in my body. I felt glad that I had taken note of that coffee shop the day before.

I decided to walk the short distance to the coffee shop, despite the fact that I was still somewhat drowsy and grumpy due to the lack of caffeine. I was used to having coffee first thing when I woke up at home, so my body wasn’t having a fun time with having to wait until after a shower and a walk to get coffee.

The walk wasn’t long, however, and I found myself there in minutes, stepping inside the front door to, god forbid, the tinkling of a little bell. The coffee shop presented the guise of being small and cozy despite being in the city, though perhaps that was because I wasn’t exactly in San Francisco proper.

The counter was a direct walk from the front door and on either side of the cash register was a long extension of the counter in front of which stools sat. It reminded me distinctly of a bar. There were little circular tables that would seat two scattered around the room, and along the walls were large, squishy couches. It was all very homely, albeit a little strange.

I walked up to the front counter and ordered something, without really taking note of what it was. Anything that contained caffeine would be agreeable to me at the moment, so I just decided to go with it. The cashier handed me my coffee quickly, and I paid him, scooting over just a bit to the barstools just to my left.

“Are you dead in the morning until you get caffeine too?” a voice asked, and I turned around in surprise to find myself looking into a pair of warm brown eyes. The voice belonged to a man sitting next to me who had layered blond hair, the longest part falling to just about chin-length. The tips of his hair were dyed lavender, which matched his airy, purple and white swirly shirt. The material of the shirt fell just above his navel, revealing a patch of toned stomach before being again covered up by a pair of tight leather pants.

I stared at him for a moment. It was strange—this man looked like he was perhaps pushing thirty, though he was by no means unattractive, and he was dressed in a manner mostly attributed to teenagers. Though I supposed that at thirty, one still had the right to be somewhat alternative and different.

There was something about him (perhaps the purple) that just screamed homosexuality—mostly his manner, the way he spoke, and generally the way he carried himself. Of course, one could be blatantly homosexual in San Francisco and not have it be a big deal. Gay culture was part of life in the liberal city. If I hadn’t been in town for a specific reason, I might have even made a pass at him.

“Yeah,” I grunted out. Apparently, the caffeine hadn’t fully set in yet.

He laughed jovially. “Are you from out of town?” he asked after a moment, sipping his coffee carefully. “I haven’t seen you around here, and I spend a lot of time at this café. I know most of the other customers.”

I took another big gulp of my own coffee, starting to feel a bit more human, before answering. “Yeah, I just got in yesterday.”

He held out a hand to me. “I’m Stephan,” he said.

“Evan,” I told him, shaking his hand.

“I’m sorry if I’m bugging you,” he said quickly. “My boyfriend says I talk too much—I like to talk to everyone.”

I gave myself a little mental point. I had been right about him being gay then.

I waved it away. “Don’t worry about it,” I assured him. There was something about Stephan’s exuberance that was strangely alluring. I couldn’t really get annoyed at him; it was nice to talk to someone. “So, do you come here every morning?” I asked conversationally.

“Pretty much without fail,” he told me. “I’m usually not here alone, but a certain person wouldn’t get out of bed this morning. I’m waiting for him to be awake enough to deign to grace me with his presence.”

I laughed, taking another drink. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Stephan mumbled to himself, but his eyes brightened a second later and he laughed quietly. I wondered why for a second, but before I could ask, someone came around behind Stephan and wrapped their arms around him. Stephan tilted his head back and placed a kiss on the lips of the man behind him.

After he pulled away, I got a good look at Stephan’s boyfriend, and I gasped. I recognized the other man immediately, but I was sure I would recognize him anywhere. It was James.

“Evan,” he said in surprise, blue eyes finding me. I stared at him disbelievingly. What were the odds?

“J—Mr. Carlton,” I corrected myself immediately. I knew that calling James by his first name in front of his boyfriend might not be a good idea, especially since my age was still quite readily apparent—I was legal now, but the last thing I wanted to do was risk pointing out James’s past indiscretions.

James hadn’t changed much in the time since I had last seen him. He was wearing a button-down shirt and a pair of black pants, his hair and body looking much the same as they had a year and a half ago. He still wore the same pair of wire-framed glasses.

Stephan looked back and forth between the two of us. “Will someone care to explain how you two know each other?” he asked.

“Evan used to be one of my students,” James said carefully, one arm still slung around Stephan’s midsection, “at the school I used to teach at over a year ago.”

Stephan laughed. “Well how curious that you would happen to run into each other like this,” he said. “What is it that you’re doing here in town again, Evan? I don’t believe you said.”

I pondered for a second before speaking, my eyes locked on James’s hand where it was on Stephan’s stomach. I certainly wasn’t going to tell the real reason I was here—not now.

“I got accepted to Berkeley,” I answered quietly. “I just came to check everything out, you know. The town, the campus…”

The smile stayed on Stephan’s face. “Well congratulations,” he responded. “Berkeley’s a wonderful school. Of course, I may be biased because I went there.” Stephan looked between James and me, and after a second, he stood up. “Why don’t I let you catch up and I’ll go get you your coffee, James? The usual?”

“Yeah, sure,” James answered distantly as Stephan placed a light peck on his lips and made his way to the cash register. James sat down on the stool next to me, his eyes trained carefully at one of the walls. Neither of us spoke.

“Well, this isn’t at all uncomfortable,” I said sarcastically, and James finally looked over at me.

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, Evan,” he said after a long moment. “I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I’ve closed that chapter of my life, difficult as that was. It’s not every day that your past comes back to bite you in the ass, so to speak.”

I laughed humorlessly, motioning over to Stephan with a nod of my head. “He’s cute,” I said detachedly. “Rather—flamboyant, but cute. How long have you been together?”

James sighed. “A bit longer than a year. He’s great.”

“He seems it. He’s very nice,” I replied. We sat in silence for another minute, each second more uncomfortable than the last. Finally, I stood. “I suppose I should be going; I have things to get done. It was nice to see you again, James.”

James’s blue eyes followed me. “You too, Evan,” he agreed, though I had a feeling we were both lying to each other and to ourselves. I nodded a quick goodbye to him and made my way to the door, turning back just as I opened it.

Stephan had gone back to James’s side and was handing him a cup of coffee before he sat down next to the other man, placing a hand on James’s thigh. I sighed, turning to leave.

James had said he had closed that chapter of his life, and I supposed it was time for me to do so as well. He had moved on, and I suspected that he had just given me the closure I needed to move on myself.

A slight smile forming on my face, I began the walk back to my hotel room. I knew that now, I could stop being so bound by the past and move on with my life. And it was a wonderful feeling.