“Yeah, I’m just ready to be done with this.”
He turned more fully in his chair, putting his arms on the back of it. “Come on. It’s graduation day. Shouldn’t you be happy?” he reasoned. I just shrugged. “You wanna do something tonight? My parents are throwing this lousy party for me, but I’m looking for an excuse to leave early.”
“I don’t want to be your excuse, Kyle.”
He paled, his brow bunched together. “Ah, Mags, I didn’t mean it like that.” He sighed. “My party is from five to seven. I’ll have plenty of time to do something with you, I just didn’t want it to seem so much like a date, you know,” he explained and looked at me bashfully. “In case you said no, again.”
“Oh.” I felt an inch and a half tall. “Kyle, I…” I was this close to telling him no, once more but I thought about it. I had always told him no. I hadn’t been on a date in a year, ever since my life fell under my mom’s pointy heels. He was always sweet to me and he was probably leaving soon anyway for college. What could it hurt? “Ok. Yeah, we can do something.”
“Really?” he said shocked.
“Yeah. What time do you want to go?”
“Is your dad throwing you a party or something?”
“No.” Ha. Yeah right.
“Oh. Uh, how about I text you? I’m sure it’s fine, but I've gotta ask my dad for the car. Mine’s in the shop.”
“Ok, let me give you my number,” I said and started to pull up my gown to reach my pocket.
“I have it.” I looked at him curiously and he grinned. “I asked Rebecca for it a couple weeks ago. I was going to call you, but I never, uh, got up the nerve.”
He looked a little embarrassed and I couldn’t help but giggle a little at his obvious hand-in-the-cookie-jar expression. He was nice looking. No movie star stud, just a normal, light brown hair, brown eyed nice guy. We’d hung out a lot over the years in our group of friends, but never alone.
“Well, maybe you should have.”
“Would you have talked to me?”
I didn’t want to lie and I didn’t want to give him false hope, so I just smiled and shrugged, hoping to pull off a little flirt. It must have worked; he grinned wider. “Ok, I’ll text you tonight.”
“Great,” my mouth said, but my head was already dreading it.
Then I saw the people ahead of him start to stand one by one as their names were called.
“Kyle Jacobson.” He looked back and grinned at me once more as he made his way on stage. There were still about eight people before me. I watched him make his way to the stage and saw his parents and a large group of others stand and applaud loudly for him, a couple whooping and hooting. He grabbed his diploma and then made a show of muscles. Everyone laughed as he bounded down the stairs. He was a crack up. Everyone liked him and voted him class clown in superlatives. He was popular, but never really dated anyone. He was always nice to me though. I used to hang out with that crowd, before everything happened.
After my mom left, my dad was lost. He went a little ‘nuts’. He quit going to work and got fired from a job he’d had for over fifteen years at the school board and now works at the wood mill for a quarter of what he made before. So, I had to get into the work release program and get a job because we had no extra money for anything other than food that I needed or wanted.
When I told my mom all this, when I explained how I had to get a job to help and how Dad was so destroyed by what she’d done, she said it was good for us to experience a little bit of heartache and hard work for a change. That was it. That was the last straw.
That was the day I decided to never speak to her again.
“Maggie Masters.”
I heard my name and looked up. Everyone was looking and I realized that my name had been called more than once. I blushed and giggled nervously as I made my way up to the stage. I chuckled under my breath as I half expected the announcer to call out Mags or Magster or Maggsie. No one called me by my real name, hardly ever.
I took my diploma and turned to look for Dad. He was sitting there. Just sitting there, not taking pictures, not clapping, not smiling, just watching stoically.
I frowned and made my way down to the end of the platform and was lifted into warm arms. Familiar warm arms.
“Congratulations,” he whispered into my hair.
“Chad, don’t.”
“Mags, come on.” He put me down, but didn’t let me go as he looked at me pleadingly. “We graduated. Let’s celebrate! Can’t you let go of the past, just for today?”
I looked up to his black hair. The dark, short locks that any girl would love to run her fingers through. His tan skin and brown eyes with his lean Friday night football arms that always held me like I mattered. Oh, how I missed him, but he was the one who left me.