My Parents Died Before Graduation and I Thought No One Would Be There for Me — Then Two Hands Covered My Eyes From Behind

There were no caterers.

There was no graduation party with a rented tent and a hundred guests, no loud celebration like the ones happening in big backyards all over town that night, the ones I had spent all spring dreading and envying in equal measure.

And as the kitchen clock ticked us gently into the evening, I understood, with a clarity that startled me, that I would not have traded that small kitchen and those two people for any tent or any party in the world.

Ethan told stories from the base — the ridiculous ones, the ones about the mess hall and the pranks and the sergeant with the impossible accent — and he told them so well that Evelyn laughed until her thin cheeks went pink and she had to dab her eyes with her napkin.