Buildings were just too confining, so I decided to take my art out to Central Park. I set my easel up and began painting.
As I began, I realized that maybe it was right. There was just something about being outdoors, with everything going on around me—somehow, that made it easier. The strokes from my brush came effortlessly, as the painting took shape.
When I finished, I smiled. There we were—at Britin—and we were so happy. But the clincher—the painstaking detail I'd put into the rings we'd exchanged at what appeared to be our wedding. They were almost exact replicas of the bracelet Brian wore.
I lowered my head and, when I thought no one could hear, I whispered, "That's what I want."
Suddenly, I felt arms wrapping themselves around me from behind. Someone leaned in and whispered, "That's what I want, too."
I gasped. Could it be—?
Then I felt it—a soft, tender kiss on my cheek, a kiss that, as I turned around, traveled to my lips.
"Brian?"
Then he took me in his arms, and just held me.
"What—what are you doing here?"
"I'm tired, Sunshine," he said, "tired of being alone."
I realized—in this vast city, The Big Apple, with its millions upon millions of people, I, too, had never felt so lonely—so tired of being alone. "Me, too," I whispered.
"Come home, Justin," he said, holding me in the same way he had after the bombing at Babylon. "Come home—and marry me."
"Oh!" Tears started welling in—and flowing from—my eyes. "OK," I whispered.
"OK?" Brian looked at me, in the exact way he had when he was trying to figure out if I'd accepted his proposal at Britin.
"Yes," I said, a little more forcefully.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes. Yes, I will come home—and marry you."
The ceremony was more than we could've imagined. My painting—the painting I'd done at Central Park—hung over the fireplace.
"May I present to you Brian and Justin Kinney."
Brian took me in his arms and kissed me. In all truth, at that moment, you couldn't tell where we ended and the painting began. It was truly what we both wanted.