Hiding In Empty Rooms

Chapter Eleven

Graduation was finally here and I was relived. This summer was going to be boring. Liz and Alex and Ellie and everyone else would be away at college and I just wish I didn't make this mistake and I should have told my mom I needed birth control and I knew inside she was disappointed in me. Even though she did not say anything about that she was. I knew she felt something, other than happiness of being a grandmother, she felt embarrassed of me.
My class started filing into the park. It was an outdoor graduation ceremony and a perfect day for one. The valedictorian made her speech before anything and then I was also supposed to say something because of art and drama and chorus. I was recognized for whatever they saw in me. my speech wasn't until after they called everyone up.
It went in alphabetical order and my last name started with an R, so I was towards the end. Vinny's last name started with an A so he would be before me.
"Vincent James Armaya." The principle called him up and he shook his hand. Senior year, we were aloud to decorate our caps, so before he exited the stage he leaned his head back and he drew a picture of him and I holding each other and we were both smiling. He was an amazing artist and he really deserved to go to art school and I felt like I was holding him back. The football team cheered and called him name and he waved to them. I watched Ellie and Alex, I watched Jake and Elizabeth, I watched Mike and crazy Adam and in that moment I felt melancholy. I wanted to get out of here. Everyone was leaving for the summer and I was sitting here like a useless piece of shit and everyone was happy and excited and leaving and I wouldn't see them in a while and I was staying. I was "that" girl. The one girl in every grade who would get pregnant and everyone would talk about me and stare.
The principal went though the whole alphabet and next came the R's. I got called up and shook Mr. Kelly's hand and he told me how proud he was of me. I sat on the stage and waited for everyone else to graduate so then I could say my speech. I located everyone even my mom in the far distance. I looked at how happy they were about leaving and starting a new adventure in their lives and I would take a dumb one.
"Ladies and gentleman I would like to welcome to the stage, Mackenzie Rose Rivers." Everyone clapped and I looked at all my friends.
"Did we actually all just graduate high school? Did we just finish another chapter in the book we continue to write when we wake up to face the world? Now no matter how disappointed you are because you may not have gotten accepted into college or even the college of your dreams, at least you are going. If you think no one is proud of you at this point. Your lying to yourself. You have come so far from where you were last year and maybe your not as naive as you were as a freshman. You will be living your life at college next fall and you will meet new people and leave the new friends to make new ones. You will hold yourself back and make stupid decisions about what you should have or have not said to that one person. Today marks the end of another chapter. This fall you will be a different person a bit more idiotic and awkward than you are right now. You will do some things that are hard. Your leaving a familiar environment and leaving it forever basically." I looked a Liz and Alex. "I will miss my dearest friends." I looked at my mom. "Let yourself be proud of the small things. Allow yourself to take chances. Don't make stupid decisions. If your leaving someone, your boy or girlfriend set them free and if they actually liked you as much, they will come back for you." Some people laughed in the audience. "Make the most of this summer because soon you will be studying for finals and drinking so much coffee you get headaches. Live your life and be happy about your choices because the only one who could have made them any different or better is you. Thank you class of 2018." Everyone stood up and clapped, cheered and cried. I wanted to cry now, but I wasn't weak now. Not now.
Everyone turned the string on their caps the opposite way and it was exciting right there and then.
"Class of 2018 you have now a whole book ahead of you. You have now graduated!!!" We all threw our caps up and cheered and laughed and cried and jumped up and down. I was going to miss high school. I was going to miss Ellie and Elizabeth. I was going to miss Alex and Jake. I was going to miss the first day of senior year when I first met Vinny. I was going to miss thee freedom I had. I would miss prom and watching people get shoved into lockers and the fights that broke out on the lobby or hallway. I would miss Mr. Kelly and his weird twitching. I would miss everything here.
I met with my mom and she gave me the biggest hug and she told me how proud she was of me for staying in school and working. She told me she was proud that I was an amazing drawer and she was proud of the speech I wrote. She was proud that I never broke down and quit. She liked that I never quit. I cried into her because from now and the rest of the seven months I still had were going to be hard and I wouldn't have anyone around to talk to and I would get real lonely.
"I'm so proud at how far you've come Mackenzie." She whispered in my ear.
My friends came over and we took pictures after I collected myself. I took a picture of Vinny and we held our diplomas.
"Everything is going to be fine." Vinny said kissing my head. "You are not holding me back from anything and if you were I would tell you. I won't leave. I will be here for you. I will be here when it comes and I will be right by your side. And when you want me to stay home and rub your feet I will do that too. I love you Mackenzie."
"I love you."
We went home and Vinny came over. I just wanted to lie there and do nothing for the rest of the afternoon. My mom went into work late after we got home. We laid on my bed talking more of baby names.
"Bella." Vinny suggested.
"And Edward." I giggled.
"Cristina."
"To common. I want something that not to many people have had before."
"Eleanor."
"Possibly for a girl."
"Jill."
"No."
"Alec."
"Too much like Alex."
"Keith."
"The country singer?" I laughed again. He was really trying and it was making me happy.
"Charlie."
"Bit my finger." We laughed hard at that for some reason.
"Amorie."
"Amorie Eleanor?" I liked that. I liked that a lot.
"Thats nice." His eyes shined when he was truly happy and he was now.
"I like it for a girl."
"Me too."