It's been a while since the incident. Things have started to go back to normal. Although I don't remember much of it, I understand that I hurt the people I love. Since my little stunt I've been under constant watch. I'm not left alone for longer than two minutes, if I'm lucky. It bothers me sometimes, but that's what I get for doing such a crazy thing. Niall isin't taking any risks with me, when we're not together he calls me all the time and we skype. He's terrified I might hurt myself again, I don't blame him though. I haven't given him reason to trust me again.
~
Today's graduation, finally. I can't wait to walk down that stage and just hold my diploma in my hand. This years been crazy, I need a break from everything.
I hear footsteps approaching, probably my mom.
To my surprise I'm faced with Niall. He smiles before walking over to sit on the bed next to me. "Hello beautiful."
I gently pull him in closer. "Hey stranger."
He winked at me. "So I hear you're becoming an adult today."
I fake a scared face. "How scary, right."
He laughed, "You'll do great."
I smiled. "What time is it?"
He looked down at his watch. "7:15"
I raised an eyebrow. "Go somewhere with me?"
He nodded "Sure."
I pulled on a sweater and grabbed his hand, leading him towards my bedroom door.
I paused remembering I probably wounldn't be coming back and I quickly ran back and grabbed my dress and shoes along with my makeup bag and purse.
Niall gave me a funny look but didn't say anything.
~
"Crap." I shouted as I ran towards the tent.
The one day you'd think I'd be on time. Of course, I should have known better. Its my fault for going off with Niall.
I push my thoughts aside before running off the the designated gate. I quickly show my school I.D to the security guard. He laughs before opening the gate.
"The one day I thought you'd actually be on time. At least you made it at a decent time."
I laughed before running off into the crowd. I rapidly scanned the rows until I found the right one. I ducked running for my seat. I made it just in time. As I sat down, John stood.
Thank god I didn't miss his speech.
Graduation Speech:
"A few months ago Mr. Smith called me down to his office. All kinds of feelings arose in me, some of which were all too familiar."
That got the crowd going.
"I reported to his office to find the door locked, that's when Mrs. Davis informed me that Mr. Smith and Mrs. Johnson were waiting for me, right here on this very field. I knew from experience that a meeting of this nature couldn't be good."
He got a few quick laughs.
"And I started wracking my brain, going through everything I'd said on Facebook and Twitter the previous week."
That really got them going.
"As I made my all too familiar walk of shame down to this very field I could feel Mrs. Jonson's eyes bearing down on me. When I finally made it, Mrs. Jonson put her arm around me and said, "John we have something very important to discuss with you. Do you know what you did?" Or something of this nature, by this point I was having a mild seizure and too petrified to hear anything around me."
The crowd couldn't take it, they burst out laughing.
"I shook my head and there was a moment of silence. I got light headed, my palms started to sweat, and I started to lose my balance. Lucky for me if I did faint, Mrs. Jonson was there to hold me up and nurse me back to consciousness. Again."
John was so cheeky.
"Then the truth came out it was worse than anything I could have imagined. I had been chosen to be the student commencement speaker. The punishment was like one I've never experienced and at first I just wished it was a suspension, I accepted my punishment and walked back down the field asking myself how I'd gotten myself into this. It wasn't until half an hour later that I came out of my state of shock and realized what an opportunity this was, I'd just been given a slot of time in which I have the opportunity to say whatever I wanted about whomever I wanted, vent all my frustrations, share all my deep and intellectual thoughts on how the school could be run and argue for why we should change the name to Jonathan Brinnier Collegiate School for the gifted."
"However, after hearing we wouldn't receive our diplomas until after my speech I decided to change my essential topics a bit. I asked myself why me? Why would they pick me to give such a speech, I don't know anything about life. I'm just a kid, but I mean come on look at me. It's pretty easy to see why they chose me. But then I thought about it a little harder, the teachers had to be smarter than they looked. They wouldn't just chose a student because of his impeccable good looks and charm. They must have chosen me because of my ability to saying something meaningful in a creative way without putting half the crowd to sleep."
The crowd started clapping and cheering.
"So here I go."
He took a long pause.
"Well I got nothing. So kick back and relax, and just take a nice midday nap and dream that I say something real motivating and inspirational. Wake up in about 5 minutes and give me a standing ovation."
They did a good job in picking him.
"Well, good morning guys. Excuse me if my speech is no good, like any other brilliant teenager I decided to start writing it a week ago. Procrastination for the win I know."
The crowd went wild with laughter.
"Ha ha, I'm only kidding guys. I started writing it in the car on my way here. Most of this is just from the top of my head, so don't worry you're guarantied to have a short speech."
He won the crowd over with that one.
"First off I would like that thank Google, Wikipedia, Answers.com, Wikianswers, Microsoft Word, basically the Internet in general and whoever the hell invented Copy and Paste. Thank you, you made graduating High School a possibility for me. Thank you, congratulations everyone and thank you for coming out today. Drive safely."
He stepped away from the podium and started walking away before turning to face the crowd.
"What are you guys still doing here? Go home, High Schools over."
The crowd erupted with laughter. He always was a funny guy.
He laughed again before walking back to the podium. "Okay now on a serious note, wow. When I was asked to write a speech for today I didn't know what the hell I was going to do? I mean I'm no writer, I'm just your average teenager dying to get the hell out of this place."
He glanced over at the teachers and staff members before looking back at the crowd of eager teenagers waiting to throw up their caps and leave High School for well, forever.
"So I turned to a friend for help. She has kindly asked me too keep her name out of my speech, she wants no recognition. In her eyes this was just a favor, but to me it's so much more. So, thank you, wherever you may be I appreciate your help."
"And I promise I'll try and keep this as real as possible. I'll try and limit all the cliches."
He cleared his throat before beginning.
"All of the adults here - our parents, our teachers, our grandparents, the principal - everyone here will tell you that this is one of the most important days of our live, that we will always remember it. It is not, and we won't. It's just a day like any other."
"Ten years from now, we will look back on the pictures of this day and think, 'Why do they make us wear those funny hats?'"
"We will not remember what anyone said, hell my speech probably won't even mater the minute you grab your diploma."
"We probably won't even be able to remember the name of our class valedictorian. If we're lucky, we might remember how drunk you got that night. More than likely, we will remember that we were forced to spend unbearable hours with our family, just to ensure that you got the cash in our hot little hands."
"Ten years from now, we will go to our class reunion and stare at our classmates in amazement. Our first thought will be, "How the hell did they all get so fat so fast?" Someone will get drunk and stand on a table and pull his pants down, and it will no longer seem hysterically funny. Things will change, they've already begun to change."
"No one here is the same person they were Freshmen year, shit, no one here is the same person they were a few months ago."
"We all have big dreams, but the truth of it is that some of us realize those dreams, but most of us don't. That's because life is hard. We will discover that we are not, in fact, stepping out from high school into a bright new future of limitless possibility. We are stepping out into a world where life is profoundly difficult, where we will face challenges we cannot now even begin to imagine. We will have to pay bills, study for finals, work for a living. We will have to support a family. We will have to pay for insurance. Our car will break down and Mom won't be there with a checkbook to help us out. We will have bosses who are raving lunatics, and we will put up with them, because we have to."
"Honestly I don't know what I'm telling you guys, I guess what I'm trying to say is, live life with as few "What if's" as possible. Do whatever you want, be whoever you want. Who you think you'll be isn't who you'll end up being. Life throws many curve balls your way. We have to get by them with as much of our sanity as possible and just keep swimming."
"And just keep in mind that some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all. In which case, you fail by default."
~
A/N: So irrelevant but that's how I picture Andrea's window seat to look like.
Short chapter.