Man it is just…words can't describe it.  And it gets to be late in the afternoon, and the sun's setting, and he punches some buttons on the stereo and brings some really cool Sunday afternoon music on.  Some Dave Matthews, some Jonatha Brooke.  And we watch the afternoon light through the windows, and I snuggle in his arms.

And then, miracles of miracles, he starts talking.  I don't even prompt him.  He talks about how when he was a senior in high school.  It was tradition for the incoming senior class to paint the senior wall the week before school.  So it was about twenty of them that had to do it, and they were all really good friends, and the faculty advisor supervising them had some sort of family emergency and left early.  So they took a break long enough to get a cooler full of beer and a tape deck.  And if this was some kind of movie, there'd be some sort of tragic ending, like a drunk football player takes a header off the side, or some math geek pukes on somebody, or somebody else gets fondled when she doesn't wanna be, but it wasn't like that. 

They all got buzzed, finished painting the wall, and had the best time ever.  Nobody got hurt.  Nobody got caught.  Everybody had a blast.  Ethan says it's pretty vivid: the memory of them up on the roof, with the sun setting.  They're all finished painting and just dancing around.  "It was like the last time for us to cut loose and be free, before we became seniors and had to deal with the bullshit."  And then he stops talking.  And for once, it's perfect.  Because he took me to where he was, or where he was remembering.  With words.  Painted the picture, and I can feel how happy he was.  It's the perfect day.