The noise blurred into one loud, pulsating roar. Lauren balled her hands, hung on to her composure by the thinnest thread.
She couldn’t help looking for her mother. Even though she knew Mom wouldn’t be here. Hell, she would have missed it if Lauren were graduating.
Still … she had this tiny, aching hope that her mother would come back, that Lauren would look up one day and see her.
Angie put an arm around Lauren, pulled her close.
The music started.
Lauren leaned forward. Below, the kids ran for their seats.
One by one the graduates of Fircrest Academy walked across the stage, took their diplomas from the principal, and moved their tassel from one side to the other.
“David Ryerson Haynes,” the principal said.
The applause was thunderous. The kids cheered for him, screamed his name. Lauren’s voice was lost in the crowd.
He walked across the stage as if he owned it.
When he was back in his seat, Lauren relaxed. She didn’t tense up again until they reached the Rs.
“Dan Ransberg … Michael Elliot Relker … Sarah Jane Rhenquist …”
Lauren leaned forward.
“Thomas Adams Robards.”
She sat back, trying not to be disappointed. She’d known they wouldn’t call her name. After all, she’d graduated last semester, but still …
She’d hoped. She’d worked so hard for so many years. It didn’t seem right that now she sat up here while her friends were down there.
“It’s just a ceremony,” Angie whispered, leaning close. “You’re a high school graduate, too.”
Lauren couldn’t help feeling sorry for herself. “I wanted it so much,” she said. “The cap and gown … the applause. I used to dream I’d be class speaker.” She laughed bitterly. “Instead I’m the class joke.”
Angie looked at her. There was a heavy sadness in her eyes. “I wish I could make everything okay. But some dreams just pass us by. It’s the way life is.”
“I know. I just …”
“Want.”
Lauren nodded. That was as good an answer as any. She leaned against Angie and held her hand as the names droned on.
The ceremony lasted another forty-five minutes and then it was over. The three of them melted into the laughing, talking crowd and moved to the football field, where huge tents had been set up to hold off the rain. So many cameras flashed that it looked like the paparazzi had arrived.
Dozens of friends came up to Lauren, waving at her, welcoming her back.
But she saw the way they wouldn’t look at her stomach and the poor Lauren in their eyes, and it made her feel stupid all over again.
“There he is,” Angie said at last.
Lauren stood on her toes.
There he was, standing with his parents. She let go of Angie’s hand and hurried through the crowd.
When David saw her, his smile faded for a split second. Only that, and then he was smiling again, but she’d seen it, and she knew.
He wanted to be with his friends tonight, wanted to do what the Fircrest grads always did on this night—go down to the beach, sit around a bonfire and drink beer and laugh about their years together.
He didn’t want to sit quietly with his whale of a girlfriend and listen to her litany of aches and pains.
She stumbled to a stop in front of him.
“Hey,” he said, bending down to kiss her.
She kissed him too long, too hard, clung to him, then finally forced herself to draw back.
Mrs. Haynes was looking at her with understanding. “Hello, Lauren. Angie. Conlan.”
For the next few minutes, they stood there, talking about nothing. When the conversation fell into an awkward pause, David said to her, “You want to come to the beach after this?”
“No.” She found it hard to say the word.
His relief was obvious, but he said, “Are you sure?”
She couldn’t even blame him. She’d looked forward to grad night for years. It was the talk of Fircrest. It just … hurt. “I’m sure.”
They talked for a few more minutes, then headed for the car. It wasn’t until later, when they were pulling into the driveway, that she realized that no one had taken a picture of her and David.
All their years together, and there would be no senior grad day photograph.
At the house, Lauren got out of the car and went to her room. She thought she heard Angie and Conlan talking to her, but there was a white noise in her head, so she couldn’t be sure. Maybe they were talking to each other.
She sat on the bed, staring at the bedpost for a long time. Remembering.
When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she went downstairs and walked out to the porch.
The rain had stopped, leaving a scrubbed, robin’s egg blue sky behind.
She stood at the railing.
There, down on the beach below, was a bonfire. Smoke puffed into the air.
It probably wasn’t the senior party.
Certainly it wasn’t.
And yet …
She wondered if she could lumber down the steps to the beach and walk all that way across the sand …
“Hey, you.”
Angie came up behind Lauren, put a heavy woolen blanket around her shoulders. “You’re freezing.”
“Am I?”