Mind and Matter

40 | Leo

If it weren't for my dad and grandparents' insistence, I'd have skipped graduation.

It meant no more to me than homecoming or prom or the sports banquet honoring our shitty soccer team last week. Maybe if I'd gone to Eastridge from kindergarten like half the students here had, I'd have cared more, but one school year in and half the faces underneath these funky green graduation caps were still unfamiliar.

"Dude, you look like someone shit in your coffee this morning," Santiago remarked from beside me, nudging my arm. "You'd think we're here taking one of Mr. Abrams' test and not about to become high school graduates."

"I would rather be doing calculus," I grumbled, adjusting the tassel on my cap that refused to lay flat. "At least Mr. Abrams doesn't make corny ass speeches about how proud of ourselves we should be when we take them."

"Well, prepare yourself for another. Valedictorian's speaking next."

Santiago wiggled his eyebrows, and all my senses fired up. The valedictorian speaking meant Emerson was speaking. The girl who I hadn't spoken to since that night on my porch in April when I'd let her go, and she hadn't fought for me back. It killed me that we'd gone from friends, lovers—hell, soulmates—to two strangers sharing cursory glances in the hallways.

People had noticed our rift. Santiago had pushed and prodded to get me to talk about what had happened, but I'd been tight-lipped for months. Even now he was warily eyeing the left side of my face, his lips parting like he wanted to say something, but he didn't have to. Because my face said it all as I cast a glance at the stage and Emerson walked up to the podium, her eyes meeting everywhere but where I was sitting.

God, she looked so in her element on that stage. A light dusting of makeup highlighted her perfectly symmetrical face, and her big curly hair stuck out of both sides of her graduation cap, which she'd pinned a few inches back on her head. Her delicate fingers with red-painted nails tipped the microphone up a few inches towards her mouth, probably because she was wearing heels.

Stop ogling her, you idiot.

"Good evening, parents, esteemed faculty, staff, and of course the graduating class of Eastridge Academy. Today marks a pivotal moment in our educational journey, the culmination of fourteen years of hard work, discipline, and sacrifice."

"Here we go," Santiago mumbled in my ear and I just grunted.

Even if it was going to the most boring fucking speech in the world, I wouldn't be able to look away.

"As much as I want to acknowledge all the accomplishments we've made over these past four years—the exams we've taken, the sports games we've won, the social strides we've made on campus and in our local community—I would be remiss not to acknowledge that for a lot of us, getting here wasn't easy. You see, in a school and town like this, it's tempting to view graduating high school as a given, a simple rite of passage to tick off a checklist, that we forget to take time to acknowledge the roadblocks we've overcome to hold these diplomas in our hands."

A couple of students perked up around us, probably because they didn't expect Emerson would go off script like this. Even the slight waver in her voice stood in stark contrast to her normally assured and collected style of speaking.

"Some of us have lost loved ones—parents, friends, mentors. Others have moved away from their familiar—some more than once." I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "Some of us have battled invisible illnesses and trauma and our own mental and physical health. And some of us sitting here may not feel any sense of accomplishment at all, despite hearing congratulations a million times over today."