Four years ago on Valentine’s Day, Graham took me to one of our favorite spots- an old combination bowling alley and arcade. He liked the loud music that he could feel through the ground. And he was way too good at the arcade games. He’d have to hunch over the cabinets to play and I’d go get us drinks and find out he’d won high score, again. He was terrible at bowling though- I always won, and it was one of the rare ‘sports’ I was good at. So I think he would sign us up for a few rounds even if he wasn’t as excited for it as I was. He’d always tell me I should join a bowling league and ‘be with the other old men’. One time, we got free drinks because the bartender thought I was his uncle and while Graham didn’t talk, he signed so aggressively that the bartender thought he was going to fight him.
We didn’t know it was going to be our last Valentine’s Day- and we normally didn’t really do anything special for the holiday besides go get dinner or order from somewhere. He hated it, anyways- but it was an excuse to order sushi or spent money on his shitty arcade games. He wore his stupid jacket the whole time. Felt like I was dating the weirdest, most intimidating Deaf cowboy. He thought the pictures I took were silly. I thought they captured him perfectly.
