Graduation.

To tell you the truth, I don’t have much to say about graduation. It was a ceremony I went to and where they gave me my diploma. That’s about it. Although Alice and Grace did receive commendations for outstanding academic performance, so that’s probably my highlight of the ceremony itself.

Unlike me, everyone had plenty of people to talk to after. My sister was crying a river as she said goodbye to friends of hers who would actually be leaving town to study in other places. Mila and the others were in the same boat, actually. Mila was ugly-crying, not holding anything back.

The people I would’ve wanted to talk to were pretty busy as well. Thomas and Kevin, for example, were with their whole basketball team. I saw them leaving for the gym to play some games together for the last time. Ben and Mark, too, had their own friends to talk to.

I was feeling pretty awkward seeing everyone get so emotional. Senior year aside, I didn’t have good memories of high school. I wasn’t going to miss this like most others would. The people I wanted to stay in touch with weren’t going anywhere far, so I didn’t need to have any tearful farewells. I did talk to some classmates I’d grown close to in the last few months, but we kept it short.

There was actually something else I wanted to do. A place I wanted to visit one last time. I snuck out when I was alone and headed to the second floor of the main building.

I opened the door to the old music room and found the new lab, as expected. It was clean and with three rows of large desks made for groups to work together. Drawers at the back stored equipment and there were even sinks. Gone were the old broken desks, the unused P.E. mattresses, the scratched whiteboard. The old tiles had been replaced with new white ones and the lighting had improved not just thanks to the new lamps on the ceiling, but because they removed the thick curtains from before.

I went in and walked around the classroom with slow, gentle steps. I walked past the new desks, peeked out the windows and sat down on the floor, leaning against a wall for a moment before I felt silly and stood up.

This wasn’t my safe space anymore. I said goodbye to it long ago.

“Hah! See? I told you he’d be here!”

Mila’s voice made me snap my head back towards the door. She was walking inside along with Grace, Sarah, Alice and Noelle. They all seemed alright, but their eyes were a little red from all the crying.

“But why here? I thought you’d be in the club room,” Noelle said.

“Right, you never knew about the old music room, huh?” Sarah realized. “Man, that’s… weird.”

I got what she meant. Somehow it felt like Alice and Noelle had always been there with us, even though that wasn’t the case at all.

“Huh? I mean, yes, this used to be an old music classroom, but…” Alice trailed off, looking at me.

I smiled at her. “I used to come here to hide. You know, back when it was unused and before it got turned into a lab. It was my safe space for over two years.”

“Then we found out and invaded it,” Grace said with a small, wry smile. “Sorry about that.”

“It was for the best,” I told her. “You ended up being right. Thanks to you all, I ended up not needing it anymore.”

Mila chuckled. “We did so many dirty things here, too.”

“Yeah. We’ve got good memories here,” Sarah said. “And some not so good, but important. I still remember when I asked you to open the door for me and you did. You know, after that fiasco with Mark. To be honest, a small part of me hoped you didn’t open the door. I thought that if you didn’t I could just wash my hands off a bothersome problem. When you opened it, I felt a lot of pressure. Like… I was actually in on this and couldn’t walk away anymore. I’m glad it happened, but it was scary at the time.”

“Yeah. I think that was a turning point for me, too,” I told her. “Thanks for sticking with me. For being so patient.”

“Shut up. I did it because I wanted to.”

I chuckled. “Alright, let’s clear this atmosphere of finality. It’s not like we’re saying goodbye.”

“Don’t blame us. We’ve been saying goodbye a lot today,” Grace told me. “And… I’ll miss school, all things considered. It was a pain, but it was… simple.”

Noelle nodded. “Seeing the same people every day, having the same routines… It was comforting in a way. Things are gonna be more difficult from now on.”

“We’re all going to the same university, at least,” Alice said. “Well, all except Mila.”

Mila herself pouted. “Don’t you dare leave me out of stuff just because I won’t be around all the time.”

“We’ll still have our own, separate classes, so I doubt we’ll overlap too much,” Sarah said. “Still, let’s try to make our schedules match.”

“Before all that we’ve got summer vacation coming, though,” Mila said excitedly. “Let’s settle on some plans soon or we’ll end up doing nothing.”

Ugh, that hit close to home. How many summers went by in the blink of an eye for me? Days spent in my room doing nothing but playing games. Though I have some pretty good memories of great games I played, so I suppose it wasn’t a complete waste.

Alice’s phone rang all of a sudden. Without hesitation, she picked up the call.

“Hello. Yes, we’re still in school. Mm-hmm. Yes, I’m with him. Should I get him over to the entrance now? Alright. We’ll be right there.”

We were all more than a little confused.

“Um… Who was that?” I asked.

Alice smiled at me. “Your mom.”

“Hah?”

“Come with me. She says she’s waiting by the main entrance.”

I had no idea what was going on, but we all followed Alice out of the lab and to the school’s main gate.

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