Ride Or Die | Book #1 ✓

Bonus Chapter - Graduation

"I cannot believe you are graduating." My mother spoke softly as she helped me pin in my graduation cap. Both of us stood in front of the full-length mirror, as I stared back at my reflection. This was it, I was graduating high school- and I couldn't believe it. Overall I was ready to be done, my high school years being hell on earth but it was still hard to part that those years were over.

She finished pinning in the cap and I soothed out my red cotton graduation gown that was opened up, revealing the tight white dress I had that hugged my body well. My mom looked up, her eyes staring into the mirror as she placed her hands on my shoulders and allowed a smile to tug up at her lips.

I watched her begin to get teary-eyed before dropping her hands away from my shoulders and wiping the tears that pricked the surface of her pupils. Parents had a hard enough time when their kid was finally graduating, but my mom especially after missing some of the most important years of my life.

"Mom, don't cry." I offered a small smile, my heart falling for her. "Oh, what mother doesn't cry on their daughter's graduation day." She scoffed back in response.

"Aspen! Ashlynn! We are going to be late, let's go!" My dad shouted from downstairs, rushing my mother and me to make our way downstairs. I grabbed my phone off my bed and followed behind my mind, only to be blinded by my father's flash of his camera as I walked down the steps.

"Jesus dad, do you really need that bright flash?" I held my hand up to my eyes, attempting to block the flash from the camera as he rapidly shot the pictures. "It makes the quality better." My dad held the camera up to his eyes, taking one more blinding photo.

"Ready to go?" Aster took one look at me, letting out a deep breath and I nodded in response. Evangeline pulled me into a quick side hug as we walked out of the house "I'm so proud of you. You've been through a lot but at the end of the day you kept your head up.

"Thanks, Evangeline." I smiled over to her as I hopped into the back seat of Aster's truck. We all got in the truck, my parents arguing about who would sit in the front-which eventually ended up being my dad.

Aster took off, blasting the speakers of his truck as he drove down the street, heading towards Northeast for my last time. Aster sang along with the lyrics, tapping his steering wheel along with the beat.

"Aster!" My dad shouted over the music before reaching down and turning down the music "How can you even concentrate with the music that loud? No wonder you've been in three accidents-maybe if you focused more on the road than pitbull lyrics your car insurance wouldn't be so high."

"Oh, Ashton let him be." My mom rolled her eyes in response as she turned her head to look out the window. "Oh so good to be all back together." I joked sarcastically, earning a chuckle from Evangeline. I looked down at my phone to see a text appear on the phone.

Pierce: If you don't get here in the next 10 minutes I'm going to lose my shit on my mother for the non stop pictures.

I chuckled down at the text knowing how much of a fight it could be to get Pierce to take photos and I'm sure June was encouraging more pictures. Mrs. Gunner was the kind of mom to smother you in pictures, wanting to document every single second of her children's accomplishments-she'd be the type of grandma to flip through photo books every day and say "I remember when..."

Me: Omfg deal with it. She's impressed you actually graduated.

It wasn't long before we reached Northeast where the whole gang would be gathered. June, Triston, Cypress, Mars, Pierce, and I would be the ones walking today. After what happened at Prom, Finn and Mercury were banned from walking at graduation due to their little prank on me.