Friends Forever, huh?

Chapter 44 | a genuine speech

I run a slightly sweaty hand over my white graduation robe, "I can't believe this is happening. We're graduating."

Cole's hand squeezes mine, "Nervous, sunshine?"

I shake my head, filled with a sudden anxious excitement, "I'm ready." 

"Me too," He replies quietly, his eyes lighting up as he glances at me, "Did you ever think we'd be here together?"

I consider him and his words for a moment. No, I admit to myself, I wouldn't have imagined this. Not after he left a couple years ago. After he started avoiding me, I thought that was the end of it. The end of us.

Little did I know, he'd show up again this year and save me from myself. Perhaps that sounds dramatic. In my eyes it isn't, though. After he left, I spent my time avoiding others and attempting invisibility. When life sucker punched me and knocked me over, I let it keep me down. Cole brought my fight back.

"No," My lips curl into a smile, "but if I haven't mentioned it, I'm so glad you're back. You've changed the game for me this year."

"Don't get all sappy on me sunshine," Cole says in a teasing voice. However, he hooks an arm around my shoulder and presses his lips to my forehead. I smile at his gesture of unspoken appreciation toward my words. Gosh, I love him.

"Hey sunshine," his lips brush my ear as he speaks and I shiver at his closeness.

"Yeah?"

"I need to tell you something."

"Hmm?"

"I'm going to New York University this fall."

My mouth drops open and I turn toward him in disbelief, "Are you serious?" New York University is the college I'm going to this fall. In all of our conversations about college, he never mentioned that he was considering it, let alone going.

"How come you didn't tell me?!"

"I wanted to wait till today so then I could see that surprised look on your face."

In that moment, I'm incandescently happy. He's going to the same college as me. I don't have to worry about us growing apart--not ever again.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you want to keep me around." A smile spreads across my face as I tease him.

Cole doesn't refute my words like I expect him to, "You should know full well that I definitely do want to keep you around. Like I said, I don't really like my life much without you in it."

I'm about to respond, but then the ceremony begins. They call us up one by one to receive our diplomas. The names pass in a blur and before I know it I'm walking onto the stage. Our principal gives me a congratulatory smile and hands me my diploma. As I walk across the stage and off it again, I become aware that my legs are shaking. Everything is changing. From now on, nothing will be the same.

A wave of nostalgia rolls over me and I'm caught off guard by the poignancy of it. I don't like my school, not really. So why am I suddenly feeling nostalgic abut leaving it?

I push away my thoughts, nostalgia fading as the star students--Shelby and Asher among them--stand up to give their speeches. Their words nearly make me feel sick. They're sugar coating every ugly thing that's happened during the school year. They're erasing the bullying, pretending as if it hasn't happened. I can't let them erase the pain that has haunted me--and others all year.