He has this memory folded in amongst those of bowties and tea parties, singing and dancing to old musicals in bare feet and pajamas. This memory, though, is blurred like an old, somewhat out of focus photograph, tattered and yellowing around its edges as if it had spent too much time pressed between fingers. It is simple in the way that the smell of summer is, in the way that iced tea and cotton hammocks stretched between two ash trees are. The hammock, in this case, is slightly lopsided, woven white cotton big enough for two that glowed happy and warm when he and his mom would carefully wiggle their way to the center and stretch out side by side, his head cradled in the crook of her arm, while his dad grilled on the patio. She, in her Janis Joplin voice, would sing songs by The Beatles and Dylan as he drifted in the land between sleep and consciousness wrapped in her strong arms and surrounded by the smell of lavender and freshly cut grass. They would stay like that, swaying in the gentle summer breeze, until the fireflies came out in full force and his dad called, laughter edging his voice, that it was time to eat lazy bones.

This is what he clings to when he blinks heavy, eyes bleary and unfocused, as the memory hangs sepia toned in front of him before dissipating and fading into dust particles that drift lazily and unconcerned in the air glowing in the reflected rays of the late summer sun. Awareness comes in flashes of blue, hues of gold that illuminates, softens, and gives into the long shadows that creep languidly across the thick carpet of green. Blue eyes that reflect the sky snap shut desperately trying to chase down those minute details – the exact color of her eyes, the tone of her laugh – that he had lost so long ago. But they were gone; forever lost in the procession of time and the sting of loneliness that only comes with growing up in memories. So he nuzzles closer to the sturdy warmth rising and falling beneath him in the slow steadiness that comes with sleep and breathes in the earthiness of sandalwood and summer tinged with the subtle sharpness of sweat. This time when he opens his eyes he focuses on the softness of the navy cotton t-shirt resting under his cheek and the measured thrum, thrum, thrum echoing in his ear as it keeps rhythm with the symphony of crickets and cicadas.

He remembers crying as he watched his dad untie the sturdy knots and unceremoniously dump the flimsy cotton into an unmarked box not quite understanding that lost was synonymous with dead and his mom was not waiting to be found and lead home to their little family that felt so empty without her essence bubbling effervescently throughout their lives. He would steal away to the far end of their little yard and sit – back pressed to the gritty rock wall, knees pulled to chest, chin on bony knees – and stare at the vacant space between the two trees as the reasoning processes of his eight-year-old mind tried to figure out how's and why's that he would never fully understand. The days passed and blurred together full of too tight hugs that lingered salty and sticky on his skin and murmured words that oozed watery sadness as they dripped from various mouths pulled down in the stern line of grief mixed with sympathy (and maybe a slight hint of relief over the fact that they were not the ones who lost a mother, a daughter, or a spouse). Accidentally setting a third place at the dinner table, attempted meals that were scorched inedible or served still partially frozen, and holidays spent hovering between happiness and guilt with the iron fist of sadness permanently pressing and squeezing around their hearts, overtook the importance of the hammock and the lazy nights spent safely swaying in her arms. The hammock and its memories slipped slowly, unresistingly, out of his mind until he unpacked the dusty, slightly tattered box on a late spring afternoon on the back porch of their new house when trying to find the cushions for the patio furniture. A few weeks later, after school has ended and the summer has truly began, Blaine helps him secure it between two sturdy elm trees.

When the evening focuses around him again, the sun is burning low on the horizon smudging the shadows thick and dark across the little back yard until they blend seamlessly into the night sky and eases the day into an inky coolness which coaxes the fireflies to flitter across the sky leaving impressions of exotic shapes in their wake. His eyes wander over the blushing hues of the night tracing the loop-d-loops of the frantic bugs before moving on to play connect the dots with the faint ghosts of emerging stars. He doesn't let the memories haunt the stars, no; those are for planning, mapping out the wavering outline of the future on disco ball nights such as this one promises to be. When he was younger he used to find his mother's face in the stars. He would find the soft speckling of freckles that blanketed an up-turned nose in a cluster of dim, faraway stars and locate the soft turn of a smiling mouth and the long, loose curls that fall past delicate shoulders in the blinking and grinning swirls of hazy, ethereal light set in the velvety backdrop of infinite space. He solidified himself in these stars, in the ability to find her in the depths of night. Now he can no longer sketch the arch of her brow or the exact shape of her eye; instead he traces a cityscape in the weak twilight building a jumbled mess of skyscrapers and bridges, ivory covered apartment buildings and little corner cafes. He builds a world for them in these stars where they can love openly and find peace in glowing neon lights that drown out the stars.

The body beneath him shifts stretching longer before sighing nearly silently and the world he had pieced together slowly crumbles around him until all he is left with is the jeweled sky and sleepy golden eyes blinking into consciousness. For an aching second, he tries to recreate their apartment that he had constructed with scuffed oak flooring and matching battered night stands that looks out upon an elm lined street but it, too, is absorbed into the night and he is left with a sad sort of nostalgia for something that has yet to happen. Strong arms tighten around his waist as the broad warmth pulls him closer nuzzling into his hair and chasing away the feeling of emptiness that had manifested in the pit of his stomach. He smiles, tipping his head upwards to meet those sleepy eyes that are sparkling brighter than any star in the constellation of their future.

"Hi," Blaine says, breathe whispering over his shoulder, collarbone in a quiet sort of exaltation.

"I love you," he replies, voice bold in the quiet confines of the night. It is not a spontaneous moment of enlightenment (those words have been spoken and reiterated before) but a simple fact that simmers unhindered, bindingly between them.

"Always," he states, lips grazing the summer warmed forehead.

They stay entwined, arms snug around each other, breathing in sync as the hammock swings in time to the noises of the night until the soft swish of the sliding glass door breaks into their still peace.

"Hey, lazy bones," a deep, laughing timber calls out into the darkness, "Rachel says that there will be repercussions if we do not get to the bonfire extravaganza within the next ten minutes."

They untangle themselves from each other and the comforting confines of the worn cotton stretched between the two elm trees and head inside into the bright happiness that radiates unblinking from within.