Noah
Graduation feels like it happens in a blur, both of us crossing the same stage a week apart, our families sitting together in the crowd like they've known each other for years instead of just over a season, Ethan's dad shaking my mom's hand with the kind of warm, easy familiarity that would've seemed impossible to imagine back when this whole thing started.
Ethan gets drafted that summer, a real professional contract, the culmination of everything he worked toward since he was six years old on that community rink. I sign with a team through a rookie developmental contract of my own not long after, both of us landing in cities close enough that the distance, for the first time in our whole relationship, actually feels manageable.
We get our own place together that fall, no committee
