I decided not to chew her out right away (mature of me, right? I am a crone after all) and actually got a bit of writing done.  Here’s a very short snippet.

“So you used to come up here?” Chris asked quietly, sensing the peace that had descended on Zach.  

“Yeah.  To smoke, mostly,” he added guiltily.  “But also sometimes when I needed… I don’t know.   Perspective, maybe.  You can see so far, and sometimes when you’re always in rehearsal rooms and libraries and dorms and backstage, you forget that there’s a whole world out there.  I would come up here and just wonder about the future.  I was fairly confident, by the time I was a year or two into the program, that I’d have some kind of career in acting.  I never really imagined movies, but plays, maybe television.  I could see that.  But I was really insecure about everything else.  Whether I’d ever really come out. Whether I’d find love, or even people who really accepted me.  A family was actually beyond my imagination back then, I think.”  He paused for a moment as Chris ran his hands along Zach’s arms, squeezing.  Zach  kissed his cheek and held him tighter.  “What we have… everything…even with my career back-burnered at the moment.  If I told my 1997-self what I have now, I don’t think he’d believe me.”