May 14th, 2017

Kinsky, California, USA

Graduation

Russell sat rather nervously outside the Kinsky High auditorium. He saw a few passerbys – some students, mostly staff, none whom he recognized and almost all gave him strange looks. He wondered if they questioned why he was there so early, when the football team’s meeting wasn’t for another hour. He was about to take out his phone to blend in when suddenly he heard a voice pointed his direction.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Russell looked up. A muscular Persian woman, almost his height, loomed over the bench he sat at. Russell recognized her immediately. As he stood up out of politeness, the woman waved out her hand.

“No, wait, don’t tell me… it’s Rus, right? Russell?”

“Just Rus is alright, ma’am.”

Magyar smiled. “Sadj has told me a lot about you. Good things, I promise.” She made a motion to sit down. Russell sat back down, scooting over on the bench to give her some room.

“Didn’t you used to wear sunglasses?” Magyar asked, eyeing Russell suspiciously.

Russell felt his face, almost as if he forgot the sunglasses weren’t there. “Yeah, decided I’m gonna go for something different now.”

“New year, new you. Where are you headed after this?”

“North Cal.”

“Ah, so are most people, huh?” Magyar leaned back, stretching her arms above her. “Well, Sadja will be there too. I work around there, past the bridge.”

“O-oh, really?” Russell let out. He had attempted to conceal his excitement, but he had tripped over his words. Magyar let out a hearty laugh while Russell blushed red.

“You’re a funny guy, Rus,” Magyar continued. “A real funny guy.”

While the two continued to talk, Emily and Rose were practicing their valedictorian speeches in the STUGO room. While Emily finished first in class and Rose in second, the two had no hard feelings with each other. After all, it was not the first time such things had happened.

While the two made their final preparations, Ash packaged up some boxes containing supplies for the government. At some point she stopped, looking over all the boxes, and let out a sigh.

“Can you believe this is the last day we’ll ever have to deal with Carmichael?” she let out.

Emily burst out laughing. “Amen to that, girl.”

Rose smiled, watching the two while flipping a pen in her hand. “Well, I’ll let you two know if he gets up to any more weird shit at North Cal.”

Emily turned to her. “What, like having a mental breakdown on Twitter?”

Ash picked up another box. “Or having a porn tab open while presenting to the superintendent’s office?”

Emily gasped. “Oh my God, I forgot all about that!”

Ash smirked as she put a set of binders into the box. “I will never forget that. Not until the day I die.”

Rose leaned back in her seat. “So, what do you guys think about the new blood replacing you?”

Ash turned toward her. “What, TJ and Josie? They seem okay.”

“Still can’t believe you guys made a two-year run. That’s gotta be Kinsky High history.”

Emily shrugged as she took a bite of a fig bar. “I said it once, I’ll say it again. They said there were no rules against us running twice, so we did. It was only after this year that everyone started being like, ‘Hey, we shouldn’t let people run twice, it’s not fair!’”

Rose took a sip of her coffee. “It’s a meritocracy. If Kinsky really wanted someone else to win, they’d let them win.”

“Exactly.”

Rose took another lean back in her seat. This time, she looked a bit forlorn. She sighed.

“I’m gonna miss you two. All the way out on the other side of the States… doing great things, but still.”

“Oh, we’ll still be back during the summers. Right, Ash?”

“Yup.”

“You two gonna see each other when you’re in college? I don’t really know how far Dartmouth and Alto are from each other.”

Emily scratched her afro. “Well, it’s New Hampshire and Rhode Island… they’re far, but its nothing crazy. We could always meet up at Boston as a midpoint. Would you be up for that, Ash?”

“Yeah! Of course,” Ash let out in a rare moment of enthusiasm.

Emily smiled, and nodded. “Then it’s a date.”

At around that moment, the door opened. The girls turned to see Sadja, a tote bag hung over her shoulder. The group greeted her as she walked in.

“Hey guys,” Sadja called back as she closed the door behind her. “How are things holding up?”

Rose melted in her chair. “I’m nervous, Sadj.”

Emily put her leg up, pushing herself back from the plastic table they were sitting at. “You really shouldn’t be. Your speech is after mine, anyway.”

The Japanese girl gave a frown. “Following you up is exactly what’s making me so worried.”

Sadja pulled up a chair between the two. “You’ll be fine! Besides, nobody ever remembers the valedictorian speech at their high school. Worst thing you’ll do is stutter over your words for a few seconds.”

Ash, putting another box away, turned towards the table. “Aren’t you with your sister?”

Sadja let out a smug look. She leaned back, her arms behind her.

“Mmhm, she’s here. But she’s currently in a long, deep conversation… with Russell.”

Emily giggled. “No way. Seriously?”

“Yup. Out of all the people I thought he’d be into… my sister was the last person on the list. But now that I see them chatting, I kinda get it.”

Rose redlined a part of her speech. “Man, imagine if they get married. Then Russell Israel is gonna be your brother-in-law.”

Sadja covered her mouth. “I don’t think they’re gonna get that involved. I just think the attraction is funny.”

There was a lull in the conversation after this. Sadja leaned forward and put her head on her arms. Her expression changed into something more forlorn.

“Hey… have any of you guys talked to Kat recently?”

Emily turned to look at her, concerned. “What, was she not at the choir meeting?”

“No, she was. But she didn’t seem like herself at all. She said nothing the entire time, just standing in the back unless she was asked for something. I tried to say hi to her, and she said hi back, but… it was just off.”

Rose looked solemn. “I haven’t talked to her too much since prom, honestly.”

“Maybe she’s just tired,” Emily interjected. “I feel like those end of senior year blues are hitting us all pretty hard right now.”

“Yeah, maybe…” Sadja looked down, her eyes in thought, briefly thinking to herself before realizing that Emily was probably right. She looked back up, the tone in her face once again brightened.

“By the way, they have the cookie stand up by the ramada now. In case you guys want to take a break.”

All the girls seemed to concur this was a good idea, and got up to leave the room momentarily unattended. As they went downstairs and out the door of the main school building, a different group walked up the path past it and towards the gym.

“So then, she hits me with the, ‘Oh I’m just so stressed right now with everything that’s been going on, let’s just not talk about this right now’. Bitch, you had months to decide whether or not you wanted to keep our relationship going, and I gave you a pass every time. Now the year’s over and I’m in purgatory!”

Maurice smiled hearing about Isaac’s troubles. “I dunno, man. Maybe you ought to just stay away from girls for awhile.”

Isaac looked at him, frowning. “Easy for you to say.”

The running back shrugged. The two then turned their attention to the other person walking alongside them.

“And what about you, huh?” Isaac asked. “What’s got you so damn happy?”

Russell snapped out of his trance. “Wh-what? N-nothing,” he fumbled out.

Isaac smirked. “If there’s one thing you can always rely on, it’s that Russell is a terrible liar. You bet your ass I’m gonna be hounding you about this after the ceremony’s over.”

As the three turned a corner, they saw Aaron leaning against a pillar. He was eating something in his hand.

“Yo,” Aaron waved. “Lookin’ good without the glasses, Rus.”

“Hey, where’d you get that?” Isaac pointed to what Aaron was eating.

The boy wiped crumbs off his shirt, pushing his head towards the right. “Ramada.”

“Shit, we gotta go to the football meet. Are they gonna be there the whole time?”

“Fuck if I know. Probably.” Aaron took his weight off the pillar as he put the rest of his cookie back in its wrapper. “Hey, any of you guys see Lukas around?”

Isaac and Russell both looked clueless, but Maurice pointed his thumb behind him towards the main building. “Saw him by the science wing. Not sure if he’s still there, though.”

Aaron nodded. “Aight, thanks. Been a pain to get into contact with him recently. Asshole’s been ignoring my texts.”

The three wished Aaron luck, as the boy went back down the way they had just came. The three continued on their path towards their meeting.

… Much closer to the graduation ceremony, Rodrigo was fiddling with his gown outside a bathroom near the cafeteria.

“Hey, what do I do with the… shiny, scarf thingy?” Rodrigo asked aloud.

“You mean the stole?” Maria responded from inside a stall. “Just drape it over your shoulders. You don’t need to tie it or anything.”

Rodrigo did as he was told, slinging the stole over his shoulder and trying his best to keep both sides of it aligned. After a few moments of silence, Maria spoke again.

“Okay, it’s ready. But you have to promise not to laugh.”

Rodrigo turned towards the stall door, pushing his hands behind his head. “Of course I won’t.”

Rodrigo heard the stall doors open. Out came Maria, her head looking at the ground as she blushed. Her gown was obviously too big for her, and the sleeves were so long that they ended in flaps as her arms weren’t long enough to reach the end.

Rodrigo covered his mouth, smiling, letting out a little air from his nose.

“Rodrigo!” Maria called out frustratedly. “You promised!”

“I didn’t laugh! I… I chuckled! It was a chuckle.”

Maria crossed her arms and pouted, the sleeve flaps falling down before her. “Laugh, giggle, chuckle – what’s the difference?!”

Rodrigo kept holding it in, waving at her in dismissal. “You look fine, chica. I bet the boys will all find it very cute. Now let’s go, venga.”

Maria and Rodrigo began to walk towards the gym. Maria tried her best to keep her hands outside of the sleeves.

“So yeah, like I said… mi mama accidentally read the website wrong, ordered the wrong size… and now I’m stuck with this.”

“And they didn’t let you change and give you another one?”

Maria shook her head. “No, because Kinsky gets all their graduation stuff from some stupid national company, and they don’t accept refunds and returns. I even asked Mrs. Little and she said there were no extras of my size.”

“A massive conglomerate taking control of a cultural tradition and injecting it with capitalist greed. Very evil. I bet Ash would have something smart to say about it.”

Maria smiled. She looked up at Rodrigo. “So, you know which way to go?”

Rodrigo scratched his head. “Uh… it’s just the basketball court, right? The large gym?”

“Mmhm. The lanes start on the south side, I think. I’m in A through D, so I think yours is right next to me.”

The two kept going down the path, noticing the increasing number of students coming out of the woodwork dressed in caps and gowns of their own. Maria was absent-mindedly heading through the walkway she always went down when suddenly she was stopped by Rodrigo’s outstretched hand.

“Wait, quick, stop!”

Maria looked up at him, confused. “What’s wrong?”

Rodrigo pointed out in front of them. At the intersection was a kid with bright orange hair and freckles, talking to some other students.

“That’s Bradley O’Doyle. Guy hates me, because I once filled his entire backpack with shaving cream as part of a prank. I’d really rather not have to get close to him, especially at graduation.”

“Wait, you did what?”

“There’s no time!” Rodrigo called out, switching to Spanish as he saw Bradley turn towards their direction. “We gotta go! Hurry, we’ll cross around the auditorium! Go, go, go!”

Maria felt her extra long sleeve tugged as Rodrigo forced her down the opposite path. As she chased after him, her face bursted into a smile.

“Rodrigo, you have so many enemies!” She spoke in Spanish, in between her laughter.

Rodrigo waved his arm behind him as he jogged through the cool afternoon air. “This is what I get for being popular!”

The two followed each other down a narrow passageway until they came out the other side, near the parking lot. As they both stopped to catch their breath, Maria looked up. Her eyes brightened, and she pointed.

“Look!”

Maurice was leaning against the outside wall of the auditorium, his phone out. The two ran up to him. He looked up as they did so, eyeing them both.

“What’s up?”

“We’re just glad you aren’t Bradley,” Maria answered.

Maurice looked at her quizzically. “Who’s Bradley?”

“Yo, Maurice! Look at her little sleeves!” Rodrigo grabbed onto Maria’s gown again, waving around the arm’s end as Maria tried to stop him. “She looks like, ah… you ever see Kid’s Next Door? The girl who wore the green sweater…”

“Rodrigo, cállate!” Maria shouted, slapping him with her free sleeve.

Maurice laughed. “Well, I was waiting on Em, but I think she’s on the other side of the school anyway. You guys want to go in together?”

The two nodded, and the three walked the rest of the way to the gym. When they got inside, the gym was crowded with students, staff, and teachers. Fortunately Rodrigo spotted Ash’s bright blue hair from far away, and the three were able to find the rest of their friends.

As the group got together, it was Maria who noticed something was off. While she watched the others engaging in bright conversation, she realized that the two she expected to see talking most of all – Kat and Lukas — were silent. They were there, but on opposite ends of the circle. Kat seemed to be unusually passive, smiling whenever Sadja or Rose spoke, but never chiming in herself. Lukas simply stood next to Russell, scrolling on his phone.

She was distracted from this observation when she felt a light tap against her back. “Heya,” Emily introduced herself lightly as she came to Maria’s side.

“You know what’s up with Kat and Lukas?” Maria asked directly.

Emily’s eyes locked in on the two of them. She shook her head. “Sadj and Aaron mentioned them, too. I don’t really want to pry, especially tonight of all times.”

Maria looked towards the two. She nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

Emily let out a sigh, turning and walking a few steps in the opposite direction. “Kinsky High… I dunno if I’m gonna miss this place, or end up wishing it was all just a bad dream.”

Maria turned to walk with her. She didn’t say anything, but nodded in response. In a moment she turned her head up, and noticed something peculiar. Across the top half of the gymnasium wall was a giant American flag draped by a set of metal hooks. It was the largest flag Maria had ever seen.

“I’ve never noticed that flag before,” Maria said aloud.

Emily looked up to where Maria’s eyes went. “Huh, me neither. I think it’s always been there, though. Funny… you’ll go to the same place for your entire life, and still not notice certain things about it. Things you take for granted.”

Nearby, Ash watched her friends interact – chatting, laughing, playing around. There had been something she had ruminated about saying, but thought it might be too much. Yet, in that exact moment, something in her mind switched and she realized it might be the last chance she’ll ever get to do it.

“Hey, um… guys?” Ash said, trying her best to vocalize her soft voice over the speech of the crowd. “Is it okay if I say something?”

The others, who instantly recognized the tone of the girl who rarely talked, all turned their heads. “What is it, Ash?” Rose asked in front of the group.

“This… might sound really stupid, but…” Ash turned her head down to the court’s floor so she didn’t have to look anyone in the eyes. Her hands gripped the sides of her gown.

“I just wanted to say that, despite everything… despite all the horrible stuff we’ve had to go through, all the bickering, the low points, the sad times…” Ash stopped, just for a moment. She looked up to the group, fresh tears now rolling down her eyes.

“…that you guys are the best friends I’ve ever had.”

Rose smiled. Wordlessly, she walked forward and, in a tight embrace, hugged Ash around the waist. Maria ran up next, wrapping her long-draped arms over the necks of both the girls. Rodrigo, who felt his heart strung by Ash’s short speech, jumped in on the other side of where Maria was. From there, one-by-one – Sadja, Maurice, Emily, Aaron, Russell — and even Kat and Lukas – walked up to join the others in what became one big group hug.

…

On the football field, the bright lights from the industrial poles illuminated the stadium. Across roughly fifty yards there were rows of seats, each occupied by a graduating senior. They all faced a stage, of which behind the curtain Emily and Rose stood, brimming with nervous energy.

“Alright Em,” one of the younger staff members beckoned to her. “We’re ready for you!”

Rose patted Emily on the shoulder. “You got this.”

Emily smiled. “You do, too.”

Emily climbed up the steps, donned in her full ornament of honors around her gown. She stepped up to the podium, where she saw the entire graduating class of Kinsky High staring back at her. She took a deep breath and, using a technique she learned in Speech and Debate, pointed her eyes back down the field – giving the impression she was looking at them, but in reality never making direct eye contact else risking getting thrown off her speech.

“I’ll never forget the lessons I’ve learned from Kinsky,” she began. “It might sound funny, but the most important things I learned here were not from books, from lectures, or from tutors. They came from my peers. The world you see and the world others see is a very different place. So different that sometimes people get into fights over it. Sometimes entire countries go to war simply because they don’t understand how the other group lives. When I first got to Kinsky, I was like that. Well, maybe not as a warrior trying to conquer my enemies…” – this elicited a few laughs from the crowd – “…but as a person who felt like a total outsider from everyone else. The world I saw, the one I grew up in, was completely different from theirs. For the first few months I got here I just went on autopilot, doing all the things people told me I should do without really understanding them, or knowing if accomplishing it would make me happy. But eventually, I found my people. And the way I found my people was not by discovering a group who thought just like me, because those people did not exist. Instead, it came from opening myself up – by really listening, not just to others but to myself. I was beginning to be able to put myself in other people’s shoes, to emphasize with them, and to help them see not just the world I wanted them to see, but help bring together the world they wanted as well.”

Emily took a brief pause. She looked down at the lectern. Her notes were there, but she was confident she didn’t need them. She was almost done. She looked back up to the crowd.

“If there’s one thing I want you to take from the Kinsky experience, it’s this: always seek to understand your fellow human. That does not mean you have to agree with them, or rationalize what they do, or be their friends – in fact, it could even mean the opposite. If someone does something you think is terrible, but you never bother to understand why they did it, then you’ll never be able to stop them from doing it. If you want to persuade people – this one’s for my speech and debate friends…” – a small pattering of cheers could be heard – “…if you want to persuade people, always start by getting to know what they believe now, and why they believe it. If you know those two things, you have the tools to bring them somewhere else. But you have to be understanding. And I hope you can all start with understanding me. Thank you.”

Cheers and claps abounded as Emily finished her speech. She was almost certain she heard the voices of Sadja and Maria in the crowd. As she turned around, she saw Rose coming up next – Rose hugged her briefly, before turning up to the podium herself. She had no problems looking others in the eye, but tended to stick between the ones she knew best – Aaron, Sadja, Kat, and Maria.

“Can we give it up one more time for Emily Bryant, my fellow speech and debate queen?” There was another round of applause, Rose leading by clapping herself. “Believe it or not, the two of us started as rivals. Now I know no one I’d rather share a graduation speech with.”

Rose took a pause, a deep breath in as she prepared to get to her actual speech.

“Like Emily did, I want to share with you a lesson I learned here at Kinsky. I think in a lot of ways it pairs well with hers. My family and I, we came to America as immigrants – my dad got an offer with the company he worked at to manage a whole new division over in California, and so he picked up my mom and me and hurried on over. When my parents came here, they barely spoke English – they didn’t know American customs, American rules, American anything. But they tried their hardest anyway.”

Rose took another break, to flip over her notes. She only had bullet points, but followed them closely.

“When I was a kid, that hard-working mentality of my parents was pushed onto me. I think that, overall, it made me a much better person. It’s thanks to them that I’m a lot more disciplined than I’d ever be if I was just left on my own. But I also think – just like Emily – I spent a lot of my time on autopilot. And when I reached Kinsky, I realized this autopilot was beginning to take me in a place I wasn’t sure I wanted to go.”

Another pause. Another flipped paper.

“So I started to rebel. I started to do things my parents would have never wanted me to do. Not crazy stuff, like smoke heroin and bang hookers…” – this got a laugh from the audience, much bigger than the laughs Emily got – “…but things that I wanted to do, like take an art lesson, or help my friend babysit, or go out to the football games. When I first started to rebel like this, I thought my parents would be mad… and they were mad, but they weren’t… mad-mad. They understood that I was becoming the things that I personally wanted to be, things that didn’t hurt anybody else… and so they accepted it. A bit begrudgingly, but they accepted it.”

There was a smattering of laughs as she flipped to her final set of notes.

“So, the thing I learned most from Kinsky… is that you need to carve your own path. You should listen to others, but always think about what your heart yearns for. Stick with your beliefs, your convictions, your passions… because they can never lead you astray. And also, maybe you can use some of Emily’s advice to get you to those places. If you think something is right, do it. If you think something is wrong, shout it out. There’s something that the writer Neil Gaiman said… ‘Always keep climbing the mountain. There will be plenty of shiny things tempting you to step off, authorities who shout at you to stop climbing. But you have to stay away from them, because they’ll take you away from your mountain.’ Always keep climbing your mountain. Thank you!”

Another round of cheering hit the field as Rose finished her speech. From far away – near a path of stairs at the bleachers, where the families were sitting – Cael Broderick watched the girl walk off the stage, taking a sip from the bottle in his hand as he did so.

“There’s no alcohol in that, right?”

Cael turned around. Gordon Wilkins was walking down the stairs to join him.

“Oh, please! Me, drinking at my son’s graduation? I’m not some degenerate. This is just water.” Cael took another sip. “Mostly.”

Gordon smiled, letting out a hearty chuckle at the joke. Cael turned back to him suddenly, a stunned look in his eyes.

“Did you just laugh? My God, Gordon! I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh since we were in high school.”

Gordon shook his head. A bit embarrassed, his face morphed into a brief smirk instead.

“You’ve heard me laugh before. I laugh.”

“Pfft,” Cael let out of his lips as he pushed a rock off the concrete with his foot. “You and the family have any plans after this?”

“Yes, dinner at Pompeo’s. And I’ve cleared my weekend schedule to do some hiking with the two of them.”

“That’s rare of you.”

Gordon watched the stage as they began to call out the names of students to receive their diplomas. “I don’t know. I feel as though I’ve been doing this whole parenting thing wrong. I feel compelled to start over, make up lost ground.”

Cael didn’t look at Gordon, but he nodded, taking another sip from the bottle. “I understand what you mean.”

The two stood in silence for awhile, leaning against opposite sides of the bleacher walls, electing to stay in the darkness and let others on the stairs pass them. After a few A names were called, Cael spoke up again.

“I got a call from Lyla last night.”

Gordon’s ears immediately perked up. He turned towards Cael.

“She’s living out somewhere in Pennsylvania. Married to a guy, some trader at Susquehanna. They got a big house, a few dogs… no kids, though.”

“She say why she called?”

“Guess she found out it was Isaac’s graduation today. It’s on their website and everything, you know. Anyway, she called to give best wishes to Isaac. And me.” He turned his head. “And even to you.”

Gordon seemed unimpressed. His head turned back to the ceremony. “Did you tell Isaac?”

“No, I didn’t.” He paused. “I’m not sure if I should.”

“Don’t. No point in stoking that old fire again. Not anymore.”

Cael sighed. He was feeling nostalgic. He hated the feeling. He took another sip from the bottle.

“Three kids… two boys, one girl. Knew each other since they were kids. Grew up to be best friends. Then, something happens. One of them goes away. Nothing feels the same. Thirty-five years pass, and it happens all over again. New kids, old story. Life is funny in that way, huh?”

Gordon said nothing, but eyed Cael’s bottle. Cael caught on and handed it to him. Gordon took a drink.

“‘What a strange world, one in which the two halves who are meant to love each other are instead the ones who despise each other most of all.’”

“Where’d you hear that from?” Gordon asked as he put the cap back on the bottle.

Cael turned to him. “Daniel Whitney. The Pier. It’s the last line in the book.”

The two stayed quiet for the rest of the ceremony, occasionally switching the bottle between each other. They never went back to their original seats.