Altered

Chapter 20: Terminus

Once I was back at school after spring break, time seemed to speed up. Charli and I both turned in our Capstones. Hers was a forty-five page research essay on JFK's Assassination and mine was a fifty-page paper about women's role in World War II. We were somehow able to survive the research and writing that had to happen to complete them and after, we were able to successfully pass both the writing and the defense of our work with A's. To celebrate, we had ordered pizza and invited our friends over to our apartment for a movie night.

The last month of school went by even faster. It was filled with graduation plans, passing out tickets, decorating our caps, and making sure our gowns weren't wrinkled. Charli was going straight home to North Carolina after graduation and I was going on a ten-day cruise to Mexico. "I invited your friends to go with us!" My mom had told me when I had gotten back from the spring break trip. While planning the cruise, she had invited Katherine, Mia, and Gabbi to go with us and all three had agreed. Things between Katherine and I were good, solid even. I knew Gabbi would be the one to keep us from dying of Alcohol poisoning and Mia would be the one to drink the most.

The night before graduation, Charli and I ate dinner with her parents who were already in town. I was living out of a duffle bag because I had made the decision to take my car filled with the things from my apartment home the weekend before and just hitched a ride back to campus with Gabbi.

Charli's car was packed full of things and she too was living out of a duffle bag by the night before graduation. That night, we stayed up laughing and crying in our empty apartment as friends from all around campus drifted in to say their goodbyes. It was bitter-sweet. On one hand, I was excited to be returning home to Katherine, Jordan, Greyson, and all of my other friends, but on the other, I was sad to leave the friends I had grown closer to at Wagner.

Charli and I hardly slept that night. We laid on the floor of our empty living room where the couches used to be and stayed silent for the most part. Somewhere along the way, she had become my best friend and surrogate sister. We were inseparable. She had become my calm in the storm of craziness that surrounded me back home in Lovejoy and I knew that unlike some of my friends at home, she would be the unwavering one. She loved me unconditionally and there was no way I would ever be able to thank her enough for sticking by my side for four years.

We both shed a few tears the next morning as we got ready together for the last time. She drove us up to the designated parking lot for graduates and we walked in silence to find our spots in line with the other History majors. The tension broke as we entered the hall that was filled with all the other graduates. Some took pictures with their friends in their commencement garb while others stayed silent, separated from their friends because of their place in line. We gathered the four History graduates and snapped a quick picture before the line began moving towards the gym. I felt my knees shake with nerves as we walked through the doors into the room filled with parents, friends and family.

The ceremony didn't last as long as we thought it would and soon, everyone was pouring out of the gym and into the main part of campus. My parents were the only family members I had given tickets to besides my cousin, Colt. The other five tickets had gone to Katherine, Gabbi and Mia, who would be leaving graduation with me to go on the cruise, Adrian and Tayler (my best friend from high school).

In the months between our spring break trip and graduation, a lot had happened. Because I had spent my last month of school at Wagner, Greyson had slowly been hanging out with our friends at home less and less. He had declined the ticket for my graduation when I offered it to him. He blamed it on the two-hour drive to the school and two hours it would take him to get back, alone. I understood, but was still hurt all the same. I wanted my best friend there to cheer me on. Adrian and Mia had broken up, but that wasn't stopping Adrian from trying to get back with her and it made pictures after the ceremony a little awkward.