Graduation
2089 Words
GWEN
I sit in my assigned seat on the graduation stage, my cap stiff on my head, my valedictorian sash suddenly feeling like a noose. The crowd is a blur. The sun is too bright. The air is too warm. Everything feels wrong.
And Sara is sitting beside me.
Of course she is. They didn’t move her chair after rehearsal. They didn’t think it was a big deal. Why would they? Why would anyone care that the girl who wrecked my entire sense of self is now brushing elbows with me under a spotlight?
She shifts in her seat, the soft rustle of her white dress brushing against the polyester of my gown. I stare ahead at the principal, who is droning about milestones and futures. I grip the sides of my chair, trying to root myself.
Then her knee touches mine.
It’s small, barely pressure. But it’s Sara. So it feels like a lightning strike.
I try to lean subtly away. I can’t. The chairs are spaced tightly, and there’s nowhere to go.
And then—softly, slowly—her hand slides across the fabric of my gown onto my thigh.
I stop breathing.
Her fingers trace upward. Deliberate. Slow. Knowing exactly what she’s doing. My pulse jumps into my throat; my skin turns molten. I keep my face pointed at the stage like a soldier being inspected, but my body betrays me—shivers, a hitch in my breath, a heat that pools low and humiliating.
She knows. God, she knows what she does to me.
I move my hand to grab hers—to push her away—but she moves faster, sliding those warm fingers higher, to the soft part of my inner thigh.
A whimper builds in my throat. I swallow it down hard.
The speaker finishes introducing the “honored debut performer,” and blessedly—mercifully—Sara withdraws her hand.
She stands. Walks to her mic with that fluid confidence she’s mastered for camera lenses. The crowd erupts with cheers, flashes from cameras already starting. I inhale deeply, finally able to breathe again.
But the relief dies instantly when she speaks.
“I wrote this song for someone,” she says, voice steady, eyes shining. “Someone who saw me before I saw myself. Someone who taught me what honesty really looks like. Someone I hurt… and never forgot.”
My heart stops.
No. No, no, she wouldn’t—
She looks directly at me.
“It’s time they finally hear how I feel.”
Oh God.
The first notes ring out. Soft, intimate guitar chords. The kind she used to hum backstage during freshman-year rehearsals.
Then she sings.
“You saw me drowning in myself
Long before the world knew my name.
You held my shaking hands that night
When all I knew was fear and shame.”
My chest tightens.
No one else knows what happened that night.
But we do.
She continues.
“I broke your faith, I broke your heart
When you were only trying to save me.
I ran from you, I mocked the spark
Though it was you who changed me.”
A murmur ripples through the crowd.
Jay looks between us.
My stomach flips violently.
I grip the edge of my seat. Hard. Harder. My nails dig into my palms.
Sara keeps going, voice trembling now, too honest, too raw.
“And when I kissed the wrong mouth
And let your tears fall to the floor
You loved me still—God, how you loved—
Even when I deserved it no more.”
My vision blurs.
She put our entire past in a song.
She made it public, but coded, poetic—just enough that only I could truly understand.
She’s confessing.
And I can’t escape.
I stare at Jay in the crowd. His eyes narrow, confusion turning to realization, then to hurt. He knows this isn’t just a performance.
He knows the song is about me.
Sara’s voice softens to a whisper.
“If you hear me—if you’re here—
Know my heart never forgot you.
I loved you then, I love you now…
And I pray you feel it too.”
The final chord rings out like a held breath.
Then the world explodes into applause.
People leap to their feet. Cameras flash. Sara beams—radiant, victorious. She bows, but her eyes don’t leave me.
She’s waiting for me to break.
I smile.
Small. Bitter. Sad.
And I stand up for my speech.
When I reach the podium, my hands tremble. My heart feels raw and exposed, like Sara carved it out and held it up to the sun.
I look into the crowd first—Jay again. My anchor. My choice.
Then I begin.
But this time, I don’t read the speech I wrote. I read the message I need Sara to hear.
“High school isn’t a storybook,” I say. “It’s a place where people make mistakes. Where people hurt each other. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes out of fear.”
Silence ripples.
I continue.
“And we don’t get to rewrite those moments just because we wish we could.”
Sara’s smile falters.
I grip the podium tighter.
“We move on. We grow up. We choose who we want beside us in the next chapter—people who build us, not break us.”
The words taste like glass, but I force them out.
“And sometimes… the bravest thing we can do is let go of what could’ve been, and embrace what is.”
I see Sara’s chest rise sharply, her lips part.
She knows this is aimed at her.
Every word.
I end with the school’s motto—“Believe in the impossible”—but my voice is cold, unshaking.
The applause is polite.
Distant.
I walk back to my seat without looking at her.
She reaches out—just barely, fingertips brushing my gown.
I don’t let myself react.
I sit, stiff and silent, until the ceremony ends.
-----
Our apartment feels like a sigh I’ve been holding for hours. The lights are dim, warm, amber—Jay’s version of “romantic,” and stupidly, it works. The place smells like cedar and vanilla, because he lit the candle I always pretend not to like but secretly do.
I drop onto the couch beside him, exhausted, buzzing, half numb. Graduation was… a lot.
Mostly because of that song.
I’m not thinking about it. I’m not.
I’m not thinking about the way Sara stepped up to the mic, met my eyes like a challenge, and said, “This is for someone who taught me what honesty really looks like.”
I’m not thinking about the lyrics—too specific, too pointed, too us.
Nope. Not thinking about any of it.
Jay wraps an arm around me and pulls me into his chest, warm and familiar. Solid.
“You looked amazing today,” he murmurs against my hair.
I huff a laugh. “Pretty sure Sara outshined everybody.”
His body goes still.
Crap. Why did I say that?
But he kisses my cheek softly anyway. “I meant what I said.”
He leans in, kissing the corner of my mouth, then my mouth itself—slow, deep, comforting. I melt into it because this is the choice I made. Jay. Stability. A future without chaos.
Not… whatever Sara is.
Jay’s fingers slip to my waist, and I let myself sink into him, kissing him back with a kind of desperate relief. For a moment, it feels easy. Like the world narrowed to something warm and safe. I tangle my hand in his hair. He sighs into my mouth.
“I missed you,” he whispers.
“You saw me yesterday.”
“Still missed you.”
I laugh, breathless, pressing closer—wanting this to be enough. Wanting him to be enough. Wanting me to be enough to make this simple.
Then he pulls back. Just a couple of inches. Enough to ruin everything.
“Gwen… we need to talk.”
A cold shock runs through me. “Jay. Not tonight.”
“We have to.”
“No.” My jaw tightens. “We really don’t.”
He looks at me like he’s trying to be gentle, which somehow makes it worse. “I saw your face during her song.”
My stomach flips violently.
“Jay—”
“And the dedication,” he continues. “You froze. Like she shot you.”
“I was surprised,” I snap. “Everyone was surprised.”
“She looked right at you.”
“She looks at a lot of people.”
“Not like that.”
I grit my teeth. “Drop it.”
“Gwen…” He breathes out slowly. “She wrote a love song about you.”
“She didn’t say my name.”
“She didn’t have to.” His voice softens in that awful, careful way. “The ‘late-night rescue,’ the ‘girl with fire in her voice,’ the ‘fight in the stairwell’—you think anyone else in that audience understood that? Those were moments you had with her. After the party. After everything.”
My chest squeezes painfully around the memory—her hand gripping mine in the dark, her shaking, her confession, her kiss I almost took.
“Jay, it was nothing.” My voice sounds thin, brittle. “We’re not—there’s nothing between us.”
“Then why can’t you even say her name?”
“Because you won’t stop bringing her up!”
“Because you won’t admit how you feel!”
My eyes sting hot and fast. “I don’t feel anything for her.”
“Then tell me why you looked like someone ripped your heart out when she sang.”
“Because I didn’t expect to be blindsided at my own graduation!” I explode. “Because it was humiliating! And because I’m tired, Jay. I’m tired of everyone acting like she matters to me when she DOESN’T.”
Jay just watches me—quiet, sad, maddeningly steady.
“You’re lying,” he says softly.
I shove up off the couch so fast my vision blurs. “I chose you. Isn’t that enough?!”
“It’s not enough if you only chose me to avoid her.”
I laugh—a short, sharp, broken sound. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He stands too, hands out like he wants to calm me. “I know you want this to be simple. I know you want to pretend she didn’t get under your skin. But Gwen… she did. And Sara still is.”
“STOP SAYING HER NAME.”
He flinches. “See? That’s what I mean.”
“I’m trying,” I choke out. “I’m trying to make this work. I’m here, aren’t I? You’re the one I went home with.”
“And you still look like you left something behind.”
I don’t know whether I want to scream or cry or both.
“I love you,” I say, voice trembling. “I’ve been choosing you over and over and over.”
“I know,” he whispers. “But Gwen… I don’t think you’re choosing me. I think you’re hiding in me.”
A tear slips down before I can stop it.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, you can’t do this.”
He swallows hard. “I think we should break up.”
Everything inside me cracks at once.
“You’re kidding.” My voice is barely audible. “You’re actually—after everything—you’re breaking up with me because of her?”
“I’m breaking up with you,” he says quietly, “because you’re breaking your own heart trying to pretend she isn’t in it.”
My breath leaves me in a shaky collapse.
“Get out,” I manage. “Before I start screaming.”
“Gwen—”
“GO.”
Jay holds my gaze for a long, aching second. Then he nods—slowly, like it hurts him—and grabs his keys. The door closes behind him with a soft click.
I stand there in the hollow quiet, shaking, tasting salt, refusing to fall apart.
I chose him.
I chose the safe thing.
The right thing.
And somehow I still ended up alone in a room filled with her name.
Sara.
- Writer
