The Abandoned Lovers

-46-

So all I have to do is eat a few fries, I don't even  have enough time to eat them with ketchup, and then I'm there.....

I look up at Mel, midway through chewing on a fry, my heart pounding as she nods.

"Remember. You're not alone." She says and I nod. Licking my lips and gulping down the fry.

I know what she meant, that if I end up having a panic attack and thinking the walls are closing in on me when I see his face again to remember that she's there and she'll help me.

That maybe not everybody hates me and they'll help.

But deep down I know that if she's all I could keep—That if I lost Rain, Lilah, Melanie, Reid, River,.... and my own boyfriend just by being me— then I was alone. I was right thinking I'm just on a cycle of being happy.

Here's another three year fall.

I grab a few to-go before exiting the car and walking towards the school. People taking photos all around with their families and friends.

Miah grabs her phone and takes a quick, non-embarrassing photo of us with her arm around me, and then we walk in.

I check in with my principal and that's it.. she has to leave to the outside in the bleachers and wait for us to walk out with that stupid graduation music.

I walk in to the room where early-grads funnel in, and since there are only about 1,000 kids from my giant school who are doing early graduation we go into the gym before we walk out and we can have that graduation moment.

I walk in, staring at the ground so I can't see Kingston and the people that will ask questions over and over like "where were you?" And things like that.

I sit down at the top of the bleachers in the gym, hearing the screams of people around the gym as I wrong my hands.

I just want this to be over.

I don't really hear the speech that the principal makes or the kids screaming  and shouting anymore as it all goes in one ear and out the other.

I'm not complaining honestly... of course I'd not want to hear the screams.

But maybe once I'd like to hear something.

Somebody saying something that matters.

We walk in our single file line out of the gym, Kingston only a few people in front of me since our last names are so close. He's looking around frantically for something... probably Melanie in the crowd... so I keep my head down and focus on the music.

Kingston told me whenever I was in pain at the hospital that I should I focus on the music he would put in my ears.

Whether it was his voice or another's.

And just once I'll listen to him again.

I sit down, my ears tuning back in as I look up. I see the few people in front of me and wish that I had a different last name as everybody is silent.

Then I hear the whisper. "Summer!" Kingston whispers and I shock my head at him, furrowed eyebrows as I shake my head. He's not ruining this for me more than he already has.