“That sounds so boring after I saw the beautiful mural at the train station,” she smiled. “Did you paint that?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well then I would love it if you could create some pieces of beauty on the walls here please.”

“Which walls?” he asked.

“All of them.”

Adam’s eyes lit up when he thought about being able to make a legitimate living off his painting skills.

“And what about you?” she asked as she turned to Michael. “Do you have a special talent too?”

“No,” he chuckled as he shook his head. “I’ve just been tutoring college kids in English since we got here.”

“A scholar?” she asked with heightened interest. “I know someone at the university that might be able to give you a full-time position down the road. For now, if you’d be interested, I know that a few of my clients here at the shelter could use some brushing up on their academic skills.”

“You’d pay me to do that?” he asked as if it surprised him.

“Of course.”

“What would you like to do?” she asked, looking straight at me.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “What other things do you need here?”

“Hmm,” she said as she put her finger to her chin and made a pensive face. “Well, there are a lot of children here at times. Many of my clients are working families that just can’t make enough to afford a stable place to live. The children that come here are frequently bored, and although their basic essential needs are getting met, the needs of their minds are not. It would be wonderful to have someone that could engage with them, show them things that are still yet beautiful in the world even though they may have already started to lose a little hope. I would do it myself, but I am already spread too thin with running the shelter and trying to make it out on outreach rounds. But you seem like you might have the perfect demeanor for it.”

“What kinds of things would you like me to do with the children?” I asked.

“Oh, anything that might pique their imagination and curiosity really. Things that might make them think and cultivate compassion. Maybe you could start a garden and show them how to take care of the flowers? Or play some boardgames or puzzles with them? Does any of that sound like something you could do?”

I found myself speechless as I looked back into the eyes of this stranger. This woman had found us, offered us the actual tools that we needed in order to build a life here, and was asking me to do the same things that I have loved to do since I was a child. It was almost as if it was too perfect, too specifically handcrafted for us.

“Yes,” I said, nearly tearing up at the prospect of finding a place like this. Here we were on the receiving end of something that we had tried to build back in Charlotte in my mother’s memory. Man, how the tables have turned.

16

Living at the shelter was much more pleasant than I had expected it to be. Our bedroom was no less private than any bedroom at any apartment or hotel, and spacious enough for the three of us to fit comfortably. Although, I could start to tell that Michael was getting a bit antsy about wanting some “alone time” with just the two of us.

Adam had already painted a large mural on the main common room wall that looked like an enchanted garden, and everyone who came to the shelter stopped to stare at it in awe of how beautiful it was. I think it made Adam happy to see that so many people were touched, and their spirit improved by looking at his artwork.

I figured that Michael wouldn’t mind tutoring too much since he had a knack for academics. That was probably thanks to our rigorous Goldshire and Lineage upbringings. There was little room to slack off and a lot of pressure to be the best at the school when your parent was high-up on the board. But I never expected him to enjoy it as much as he seemed to. Not only was he tutoring the college-aged kids that had to drop out of school because they couldn’t afford tuition. But he was also tutoring the adults, and the grade-school-aged children, and even the elderly people that became interested by listening to his lessons.

He was a natural, and I had no idea that he even possessed the skills to teach and relate to others so well. It almost made me laugh when I thought back to all of the times that I thought he was such an arrogant and cocky prick, and the times that we were fighting on the rooftop or throwing punches on the walkways of campus. Who would have thought that the same man who had blood on his hands, would now have a chance to do something so good for others? It seemed like coming here might have been worth all the struggle after all.

“What are you looking at?” Michael asked me as he came to wrap his arm around my waist.

I hadn’t even realized that I had stopped in the middle of the hallway and was staring rather blankly at the wall while I thought things over.

“I was just thinking about our plans,” I said. “What do you think about looking for an apartment soon?”

“Absolutely,” he smiled. “I think we have enough money saved now that we can find a place. What about Adam?”

“What about me?” Adam said as he came down the hallway.

“We were just talking about looking for an apartment soon,” I said. “Now that we have some money saved up and can apply.”

I could see the hurt look that Adam tried to hide in his eyes. He knew that now things were at the perfect point for us to all start building the lives that we wanted. And for Michael and I, that meant a life together—without Adam. At least without him living with us.

“I already know where this is going,” Adam said. “And to be honest, it’s okay. I’ll find my own apartment and I think that I might even use a room in it as an art studio. I’m having way more fun making art than I ever have and turns out there’s quite a market for artisan works in Quebec.”

I was really glad that Adam was taking this so well and that he had his sights set on other things for himself. I wanted him to be happy and for his life to be full.

“We still need to all stay close by though,” I said. “The three of us are the best of friends and we have to stick together always.”

“Of course,” Adam laughed. “I said I’d get my own apartment, but I didn’t say it would be in a different apartment building.”

Michael burst out into laughter.

“At least I like you better than I liked Rob,” he teased.

He patted his friend on the back and I thought back to the first time that Adam had brought me into their apartment on the Lineage campus and paraded me around in front of a very pouty and obstinate Michael at the time. Through it all, even in the toughest of ups and downs where at times I thought they might actually kill each other—they remained friends.

“And who knows,” Adam said, “I might even find another true love here.”

At first, I thought that he might have just been making a random remark, but then when I saw his gaze drift down the hallway toward where our boss was helping to pack some backpacks with basic supplies to distribute to some of the homeless, I noticed how his eyes seemed to linger on her for more than a few seconds.

“Anna?” I asked him as I looked back at him with a grin. “You have a thing for her?”

Adam looked as if he was blushing every shade of red on the spectrum.

“I didn’t say that at all,” he said.

“You didn’t need to,” Michael smirked. “Since when did you start crushing on the shelter owner?”

Adam looked uncomfortable and his eyes shifted between mine. I reached up and put my hand on his chest.

“You know that no one will ever have what we had together, right? And I will always love you, just as I still love Rob, and Julian, even though they’re not here. But you deserve to be happy, Adam. You deserve to have someone to be with that belongs only to you.”

“Thanks,” he smiled with a look of relief. “I think that I needed to hear that. It feels strange, you know—letting go of you.”

“You’re not letting go,” I smiled. “You’re building something new.”

“Let’s all go have a beer together and you can tell us all the juicy details,” Michael teased him.