This is My Message to You

Green

GREEN

For days after, when someone would ask, "How was your graduation?" I would respond with "hot as fuck." Sure, the ceremony was nice, and my mom cried as they called my name and I walked across the stage, and I got an armful of awards to stick in my closet for the rest of eternity. But mostly I just remember sweating buckets.

A heat wave rolled into my town in mid-May, the temperature gauge in my car reading ninety-six degrees as we pulled into the school parking lot. My hair hung in curls already damp with sweat, my makeup dotting on my face, and I wanted to rip off my long, billowing graduation robe and jump in a pool.

Somehow the air conditioning in the school chose not to extend to the gym that day, so several hundred people sweated and boiled and cussed out the weather for two hours. I sat in my white dress and dark robe, listening to speeches and attempting to feel some nostalgia for my classmates around me. Mostly, though, I just wanted to get the heck out of there.

At the end of the ceremony, people swarmed the gym exits, even though the air outside wasn't much cooler. My mom clamored for pictures, so I checked my hair on my phone camera and wondered how my makeup wasn't streaking down my face. Then I seized some of my friends and prepared myself for the onslaught of photography.

"Can I get one of just you and Grace, please, Riley?" asked my mom, although by one, she meant several billion. She kept adjusting for the light and the background and the grass, until finally I got Grace to say that she had to go find someone so that the pictures could stop.

"It's just high school, Mom," I grumbled as she smoothed down stray curls and cried a little more. "Everyone graduates high school these days."

"I'm going to have an empty nest now," she sniffed, which guilted me into hugging her tightly despite the sweltering air around us. She patted my back and mumbled some stuff about her baby was all grown up, while I told her I loved her, and then she said suddenly, "Oh, there's Connor! You two should get a picture!"

Turning, I caught a glimpse of Connor hovering just outside the massive pack of graduates and families, his robe carelessly unzipped and one hand thrust inside his pants pockets as the other scrolled through his phone disinterestedly. I had one second to wonder where his parents were before my mom was calling his name across a crowd of people.

"Mom – Mom, don't bother him – he doesn't want to –"

My efforts were in vain, per usual; my mom can never be dissuaded from anything. Clearly under the impression that Connor and I were still the best of friends, she gave him a beaming smile and waved him over as his head turned in our direction. For a moment, I was convinced that he would look away, but he stuck his phone back in his pocket and began to weave his way toward us.

"This'll be so cute," gushed my mom, clasping her hands. "I have so many pictures of you two from elementary school – now you've both made it to the end."

I rolled my eyes. "Mom, high school isn't the end. We're both going to college."

"Don't remind me, Riley – oh, hello, Connor! Congratulations!"

"Thanks," said Connor as he stopped in front of us, his voice flat. I made eye contact with him for a split second before he turned his gaze back to my mom, but in that single moment I felt a lump form in my throat that hadn't been present during any of the emotional graduation speeches just minutes before.

Red tinged the whites of his eyes, accentuated by dark bags that made them paler blue and more exhausted than usual. Stubble lined his cheeks and his hair still hadn't been cut, drooping over his eyebrows and shiny in the heat, but he made no effort to move it away, even though I knew that had always been his pet peeve.

"Remind me where you're going to college, Connor," my mom was saying. "I don't remember if Riley told me..."

As he answered, his eyes roamed over our heads through the crowd, as dim and expressionless as his voice as he talked about his future. I tried to follow his gaze discreetly, but then my mom was pushing me toward him, demanding that we take a photo together so that she could put in her scrapbook (the one that still has yet to exist).

"Yeah, okay, sure," mumbled Connor, his eyes flicking in my direction again as I moved to his side. He put one arm around my shoulder, and I put mine around his waist, and for one moment, as we turned to smile at the camera, we were Connor and Riley, best friends and worst enemies and terrors of the neighborhood.

And then he dropped his arm, waved a languid goodbye to my mom, and stuck his hands back in his pockets as he wandered off to disappear in the crowd again.

Grace asked me if I wanted to go to a post-graduation party that night.

I pictured Connor's eyes and said no.