Heart and Soul [bxb]

Epilogue

One year later, Senior Year

There was a taste of thrilling suspense and gut-wrenching trepidation in the air around them.

Johnny hung off Carter's arm, close enough he could hear that second heartbeat as one with his own. Jenna's expertly drawn eyebrows were shot up toward her hairline. Joey and Roy were practically holding each other's hand. Next to them, Lauren was leaning over Bella's shoulder, who was leaning over Seth's.

"I'm sure you passed," Mel spoke softly, between Johnny and Roy.

"And if you didn't, that's fine too. You'll have Frankie to keep you company," Lauren added flippantly.

The grateful look Seth had shot Mel morphed into one of reproof toward the blonde. Lauren shrugged with a coy smile and Bella shoved her non-too-gently. Her dark-brown eyes zeroed back in on her boyfriend immediately.

"Just check your grade, you're making me nervous," she blurted, squeezing Seth's bicep.

Seth's pale green eyes moved from the screen of the phone between his hands to Carter, standing directly to his other side.

Carter aimed for a reassuring smile. "Whatever's on there isn't going to change by delaying it," he said. "Might as well just look now."

Seth replied with the slightest of nods before he turned back to his phone. His fingers moved to refresh the page and his expression turned to stone after a quick glance. He stood motionless for a couple of seconds, before Bella and Carter exchanged an anxious, disheartened look.

"I passed."

Gray-blue and ebony-brown eyes widened at the same time, before Bella and Carter leaned over each of Seth's shoulders to check his Algebra grade on the online platform displayed on his phone. 

C+. 

He passed.

"What?" Bella spat, taking the phone from his hand. Lauren instantly leaned over her shoulder to take a look. Joey, Roy, Mel and Jenna stared at them in vibrant expectation.

"Why would you scare us like that, asshole?" Bella cried, shoving Seth's phone into his chest. He took it into his hands, grinning widely at Carter.

"I'm graduating with you, guys," Seth declared. "I passed," he repeated with a clear note of disbelief in his tone.

The whole group shared a collective sigh of relief, while Carter peeled himself from Johnny to hug his best friend. Because he had actually fucking passed the math class that had been his Achilles' heel for his four years of high school.

"So much drama for a fucking grade," Jenna retorted, as Carter and Seth parted with mirroring beaming smiles.

"Should we assume you passed everything too?" Johnny asked.

Jenna smiled cockily. "Fucking honors roll too," she said.

"I still don't know how that's possible," Joey mused.

"I didn't have linebackers stepping on my head for four years, that's how," Jenna shot back.

"I passed too," Joey threw in, as an irrefutable defense.

And Carter guessed it was. Joey, like Seth, like all of them, had passed. And now they were all graduating together. The first step toward the rest of their lives, post-high school. One last summer all together awaited them, and then college. Which meant separating after a year forging the most amazing friendships neither one of them would ever have predicted.

As they laughed, and joked, and basked in the unmatched bliss that came before one had to face reality, Mrs Abrahams—the uptight, but nonetheless competent, Algebra teacher—walked by them. She stopped in the middle of the hallway, peering at their careless tumult from over rimless glasses.