Forbidden love

Twenty third part

I walked inside. I don't think either one of us were expecting it to be so awkward.
"You look so beautiful. I mean of course you do, you always look beautiful" he said to me.
"Thank you, you look good too"
"I've finished packing all of his things from his bedroom" I could see in his eyes that packing up his dads bedroom had made him cry.
"So what do you wanna pack now?"
"Living room maybe" I nodded at him and walked to the living room. I had never been in his apartment, but it looked sorta like I thought.
"I'm selling this apartment. I live in New-York anyways plus it has too many memories"
"I get that. What should I pack?" he gave me a box and pointed to a cabinet. I opened it and started packing things into the box. I found a picture of a little boy sitting in an older mans lap smiling into the camera.
"Archie, is this you?" he walked over to me and sat down next to me.
"Yeah, I have no idea when it's taken but that's me"
"Is it your dads lap you're sitting on?"
"It is"
"I get now why you are so handsome" I said smiling at him.
"Yeah, I get that a lot"
"It must feel lonely without him"
"It does. Even though I didn't spend much time with him these last few years"
"Why not?"
"I watched my mom get more and more sick until she died. I didn't wanna watch my dad die too. So I stayed out of the house. For awhile I was just home when I had to sleep, then I met you which meant I was at your place all day and then I met Nelly. I practically lived at her place until the camp, and well, here we are now"
"Do you regret it?"
"Not spending time with him? Sometimes. I know that he wanted me to but I just thought that if I didn't see him it would make it easier to lose him"
"Is that why you ignored me?"
"Maybe"
"You don't have to be ashamed or hide it. You're scared of losing people, so what, we're all scared of something"
"He called an ambulance. He could feel that he was close to dying so he called an ambulance. When they got there he was still alive so they took him to the hospital. The nurses tried calling me but I was working so I didn't pick up. Then they called me later that night to tell me he had passed. All he had been talking about when he was in the hospital was that he wanted me to come. He just wanted to talk to me one last time, even if it was over the phone. But as the bad son I am, I couldn't even give him that" I saw that he had tears in his eyes. I grabbed his hand.
"Your dad loved you, and you loved him. He knew that. He didn't die thinking that you wouldn't fulfill his last wish. He died knowing that your whole life you have fulfilled every single one of his wishes by just being you. It's not about his last moment, it's about the moments leading up to it. And even though you don't believe I know that he died knowing that his son loved him more than anyone on this planet"
He looked up at me and smiled.
"Thank you for being here"
"There's no place I rather be" he leaned in slowly and kissed me. It wasn't like one of those heated and wet kisses like it usually was. This one was sweet, I could feel that he was trying to show how much he appreciated me being there. He put his hands on my face so that I wouldn't be able to pull away, which was okay. I didn't want to pull away ever. But eventually he let go of my face and pulled away.
"I love you so much"
"I love you too" we just spent the rest of the night sorting through pictures. There were the ones of Archie graduating both high school and then college.
"I didn't know you went to Juilliard"
"I did, I can't believe it's been three years since I graduated"
"I can't believe I have four years left of college"
"Well that is if they let you stay. I mean it's been one day and you're already skipping school"
"I did it for a good reason"
"To help me. What did they say when you told them that?"
"I didn't tell them that. I just said I was sick"
"Wow, school is already going great for you"
"Thank you. I'm learning a lot" he laughed at me.
"What do you want to do?"
"Now?"
"No, with us"
"I wanna start fresh. No more hiding, no more future us. I want us to go on our first date and you giving me the goodnight kisses after dropping me off. I want us to focus on now, I want our relationship to be like we met today"
"If that's what you want then lets do it. I've told you this before, and I'm gonna keep telling you until it sticks. You are the most amazing person in this world and if you decide on something it'll happen. So this, this will happen" he kissed me again and when he pulled away he had a big smile on his face. I smiled back at him before continuing to look through old pictures.