Whenever I tell people that I met my gorgeous husband Alec in high school, they get this sort of stunned expression on their face. I was confused before one of my rather blunt friends pointed out that no one we knew had a relationship that lasted that long, or even through a year. It makes me smile when II think of it, like me and Alec are this kind of power couple, one that survives all the odds.

I knew immediately he was something special when he walked through the doorways of Idris (A.K.A pretentious private or PP) with his hooded-head bowed and headphones in his ears. I couldn't see his face thanks to an unruly mess of hair and his clothes made me want to curl up and die inside, but I knew, even then even now.

When we finally made our first interaction. In Biology, sex ed. It was because I had rather unashamedly asked why the teachers never taught anyone the rules of gay sex, even though we apparently had more sex and spent more time talking about dicks than anyone else. Some idiot had made a rather insulting comment about homosexuality and I felt pretty pissed off. Anyway, Alec had laughed under his hand and when I called him out on it, he looked up at me with his stunning blue eyes and said:

"So what?" It wasn't mean, insulting or homophobic, maybe even mildly flirty, but whatever it was I was hooked. Dragged down into the stormy depths of his ocean blue eyes. They captivated me then, they captivate me now.

For our first date I took him out to the cinema to watch some crappy film that was predictable and cliché like nothing you'd ever known. That night when we drove away in my mint green Audi convertible, his eyes shining at my description on how sucky the movie was, I had made an exception to my 'Don't kiss on a first date rule' and kissed him like I'd never done before. I had also decided I loved him, right there, right now.

The first time we made love was a moment burned in my memory like a scar. We had a lovely picnic before residing into my family's barn when it rained. I confided my family's secrets and he kissed them away as our tears mingled saltily on our lips. I then took him to my room, laid him down on my bed and for lack of a better word, had my way with him. When we were cleaned I held him in my arms and kissed his head and made a silent promise to myself that I would never ever let this man go.

"I told you I loved you, and you said so too, I knew long before then that we were true!" That was the poem left on my pillowcase in the morning when Alec left early to see his parents. I had buried my face in the sweet smell of him and squealed like a fangirl.

When we moved in together, we christened every room in our home with our love and brought matching towels and brought coloured paint. The next day we got letters accepting our university applications. His was in England and mine in France. He swore he wouldn't go, but I made him. With tears rolling down my face, I told him that he needed, no, deserved this and everything that would benefit from it. At the airport we said goodbye with tears and kisses and promises of the future. In those four years we were apart, by no afore mentioned agreement I remained celibate and so did he.

When we met up properly for the first time in those four years, Alec ran at me and I hugged him hard enough to squeeze the air out of his lungs. When we pulled away, he had pulled out a velvet box and was balancing on one knee.

"I don't want to spend a single second without you ever again!" He announced and the next year we were married. We brought a penthouse in Brooklyn and painted our bedroom rainbow. I brought a pastel blue fridge and he got magnets shaped like the Eiffel Tower and The Big Wheel where we pinned pictures of our universities and memories from there.

The first time we had a proper fight was over his parents. They wanted to make us sign a treatment that said if we divorced in less than five years, I wasn't allowed to claim any of his family's money, that if we adopted and I claimed custody of the child, that I would receive no support from his incredibly wealthy family. In other words I would be all on my own. I was ready to sign it, knowing that there was no way I would depart from Alec and the no way I would ban our child from seeing him. He didn't think the same. More to the point he didn't want to make me unhappy if I was going to find someone better or wanted to take away our child from someone like him. I discovered all of his insecurities and as a result it brought us closer together. I signed the paper knowing that nothing would ever bring us apart. Not then, not now.

When we adopted our first child, Emilia, I was so scared to mess up, that I managed not to touch her for a week. It was so hard looking into her soft brown eyes and thinking that I could destroy something so perfect. Alec was brilliant about it, locking me in a cupboard with her until my cheeks hurt so much from smiling. For the second, Isaac, I was a lot more prepared, and for the third, Ryan, I was just as good as Alec!

The first time we got the results that Alec had cancer, I froze up. I literally could not move for however many days. Emilia was in her high school years and Ryan was just finishing primary. My life without Alec? It made no sense. We worked through it though, getting help and therapy and at a low point babysitters, so we could have a couples retreat for a couple of days. In two years, they said it was gone. We rejoiced with cake, champagne and orange juice and later very hot, very loved up sex.

When Alec then died…

When Alec then died…I couldn't feel any more. I heard Isaac screaming at me that I had to wake myself up, it was an out of body experience. My inner body was crying so hard that my heart ached and my brain just could not function. Emilia did whatever it was and I came back into myself with a shock. I could see the world with colour again and the tears that blocked my vision weren't as blinding. I held them, held them all. So close, so tight and I vowed to never do it again. Isaac wrapped himself in the jumper I was wearing and sat in my lap like a child, although he was in year eight now. Ryan was harder to persuade. In the end all it took was some good tips with glitter and we were back, but for months before that, he was man of the house. Taking extra home economics, cooking, classes at school to cook meals for us, although I could have done it. Fixing everyone's and everything's problems like I couldn't handle them. It hurt, but I deserved it. We sat down and talked it through, him eventually sobbing against me as if the world depended on it. I just held him, murmuring into his hair as black as Alec's had once been.

Emilia's graduation was something of beauty. She was going away to England having been accepted to Alec's university and I was by far the proudest father there. Admittedly everyone else had deadbeats compared to my baby, but you know…WHATEVER! We were back on track.

When I got sympathy words from people who visited me, looking at all the pictures on the walls of my home, I shrugged them off. Alec and I had the only relationship that survived life and death and to this day I still love him more than the human heart is capable of. I go to the white cliffs of Dover every two months and toss rocks into the sea, every one of them holding a whispered love confession of how much I loved him and how much I continue to do so.

Now lying in my lovely, wooden bed, unable to move and surrounded by the people who mean everything to me, I smile. When I close my eyes I see Alec's beautiful face and shining blue eyes as I never have before. His hair is unruly and falling in his face and his arms are spread wide and welcoming. I whisper my last words of goodbye to the children who gather crying around Alec and I's bed and step into him, being engulfed by the scent that has only ever been him.

Alexander Gideon Lightwood (1994-2024)

Magnus Bane (1995-2075)

"I told you I loved you and you said so too, I knew long before then that we both were true!"