T's Hopeline | ✓

28. Graduation

Please read this author's note:

I'm sad to report that Teen Hopeline is coming to an end and here is the chapter I'm most excited to share with you (so far). I put a lot of thought into it and even created a character and certain situations so this could be possible.

Let me know how you think it turned out! Feel free to comment anything, make it rain on my comment section for all I care (I'd actually like that) and tell me what you think. Also, don't forget to vote and share this with your friends. I'm forever thankful for those of you who have done that every opportunity you got!

Thank you for reading this far and I hope you really enjoy this four-thousand-word chapter!

- Tessa -

This was it, today was the day that ended an old chapter of my life and a new one began. Off went my high school days and there were the university ones staring right back at me with a smile and knife hidden behind them to, later on, stab me with.

I had dreamt of this day so many times but now that it's here I was beyond speechless, it was incredibly overwhelming. These past years had been so complicated, yet so interesting and enriching. It was amazing how big someone's mixed feelings toward something could be.

Today was the day, this was it. Something I had fought for so long was finally here, at my reach.

No matter how much I tried to convince myself it was all going to be ok I kept feeling sad. I never expected to be sad, not today. Sure, I'd most likely cry a little because I knew that Chelsea was going away to a different college and that we wouldn't be able to continue making wonderful memories that lasted a lifetime in person like we've done since day one but I never thought there would be such a big knot in my stomach.

Between now and receiving my final report, I applied for all the universities I wanted, several only as backups, of course, and I began packing everything.

As I stood in my almost bare bedroom I began looking back in time to when I was little and there was a wooden dollhouse with beautiful hand-drawn plants on the front my mom made to add that special and personal touch that I would forever hold dear. That was where I spent hours upon hours playing with dolls and redecorating it. Then I look at my almost emptied out closet, I used to play dress up there. I used to steal some of my family's clothes and hide in my room with them and play make-believe, it was amazing. I was almost fit to be an actress. Next, I stared at my desk, the same one I had since primary school, I had spent ages using it. The amount of blood, sweat and tears that that poor piece of wooden design had been tainted with and the frustration, anxiety and stress it had lived through. It was weird how, after all this time, I was saying goodbye to it and how meaningless those hours, upon days, upon weeks, months and years seemed now that they were all summarised into a grid with subjects and the corresponding digits of my scores. It all felt... almost meaningless.

Finally, there was my bed. My parents never got me a princess bed, not even when I bugged then 25/8 for one back when I was 6, they thought I'd outgrow it or begin to dislike it soon after the thrill of the purchase was gone. Now it felt like the right choice but back then I almost threaten them, I can't remember what the threat was all about but I remember it existing quite clearly. All the playtimes and goofy moments aside, the numerous times my ex had laid me down against it and made out with me, made me feel good were crazy to think about and already managed to feel so distant. But beyond all of that, there were the phone calls. Most of them were managed on that bed, mainly because James used to have a lot of trouble when it came to sleeping and so did I, at times. I remember some calls so well, it's almost as if I could relive them inside my head. Almost...