:A Surreptitious Relationship: Chapter Fifty-Four

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“Holly Evers.”

            My pulse was pounding so hard in my ears, I didn’t hear my name being announced. Ron Everett, the senior standing next to me, gave me a little shove. “You’re up, Holly.”

            I stumbled forward, nearly tripping over the hem of my gown. The roar of applause now drowned out my pulse. More than one thousand people had their eyes on me. My eyes only met one pair though— a piercing grey pair. A handsome smile was Chris’s face as I staggered up to the stage, keeping my focus on him so my nerves wouldn’t cause me to throw up. Someone wolf whistled and I glanced away from my boyfriend briefly to see Aaron grinning wickedly at me.

            Of course, he distracted me just enough to cause me to trip on the first stair to the platform.

            Laughter erupted from the massive audience and I felt my face catch on fire. I scurried the rest of the way up the steps, nearly tripping again, and basically jogged up to the principal, passing straight pass Chris and Jeremy, who sat on the stage, laughing hysterically. Even Ms. Elliot was giggling.

            “Congratulations, Holly,” Ms. Clemm greeted me, holding out her withered hand. “Good luck.”

            “Thanks,” I mumbled, gripping her hand gently, afraid I’d break it with a full grasp.

            “Here’s your diploma.

            I took the thin roll of parchment from her hand like I’d done at least five times in the practice ceremonies. Now though, it was the real thing in my grasp. It was crazy to think people went to school for twelve years straight all for a flimsy piece of rolled up paper.

            My principal gave me a gentle push, and I moved down the line of teachers to the vice-principal, who also shook my hand, then to the guidance counselors, and so on. The rest of the graduation ceremony was a blur. I clapped my hands when I was supposed to. I cheered when my friends went up. I sat and listened to speeches. I just wanted it to be over.

            Finally, finally, everything came to an end. Black caps were thrown into the air, startling me. I never imagined it actually happened in real life. So of course, I was a little late to the ball. I threw mine up right after everyone caught theirs coming down. As I reached up to catch mine again, someone tackled me from behind. Gasping in surprise, I almost face-planted for the second time in under an hour.

            “Congratulations!” Casey chirped, clinging onto me. “Now go kiss Mr. Heywood— ah, I mean Chris, in front of everyone!”

            I turned to her, surprised, noticing my cap fall to my feet. “You corrected yourself?”

            “He’s not our teacher anymore,” she said with a grin.

            A grin spread across my own face. “That’s true.”

            “Congratulations!” a new voice shouted and I felt someone try yank my neck off. Lance laughed loudly, keeping one arm wrapped around both mine and Casey’s necks as we choked.

            “Killing… me…” I gasped, digging my fingernails into his skin.

            He released me quickly. “Ow!”

            “I’ve had enough encounters with death for my life, Lance,” I snapped at him. “I don’t need you choking me.”

            He scowled, rubbing his arm. “What crawled up your butt this morning?”

            “Not Chris,” Casey commented slyly.

            I didn’t hesitate to smack her, my face growing hot again. “That’s gross!”

            “Is it?”

            Lance clapped his hands over his ears. “I don’t want to hear this.”

            Casey looped an arm through his and her other through mine. “Okay, how about we stop standing here and say goodbye to our friends?”

            “We’ll see them at Aaron’s party,” I pointed out.

            “Not all of them,” she countered. “Like Danielle. She’s not going. Neither is Willis. Or Sam.”

            My heart lurched. “What? Why aren’t they?”

            “Family parties. Aaron’s not the only one having one, you know.”

            As this new information sunk in, I began to realize this was really it. We’d finished high school. Now everyone would be going their separate ways. I wouldn’t be able to see my friends every day like before. Nor any of the teachers I’d known for the past six years. The structured days of high school life were over. Now I was on my own, forced to face the world.

            “Danielle!” Casey cried as her brunette friend walked by. “Hey!”

            Danielle paused, turning and grinning brightly at us. “Hey guys! What’s up?”

            “Saying our goodbyes,” Casey informed her. She nudged me in the side with her elbow. “Right, Holly?”

            “What college are you going to?” I blurted out.

            Danielle smiled. “Boston Uni.”

            “You’re going all the way to Boston?” I cried.

            “Yes?”

            “I’ll never see you again!”

            She laughed, shaking her head. “That’s not true! I’ll be home on the weekends. We can hang out sometimes.”

            The tears came so fast I had no chance of stopping them. “But it’s not the same…”

            “Aw, Holly,” Lance cooed, liberating himself from Casey so he could hug me. “I always knew you would be the one out of all our friends to start crying first.”

            Danielle joined in on our hug too. “You have my cell number. We’ll keep in touch, okay?”

            “Okay,” I sniffled.

            At that moment, Sam came bounding up to us, grinning happily. “Hey guys— Oh, Holly. I thought you’d be the one crying.”

            The four of them laughed while I scowled through my tears. “Funny, Sam. Where are you going?”

            “To see my girlfriend…?” he responded slowly.

            “I mean for college.”

            “He’s with me,” Danielle informed me.

            Casey clapped her hands together. “That’s so cute! You’re so lucky!”

            Sam nodded his agreement. “Same major too. But we really have to leave—”

            “What? Why so soon?” I demanded.

            “We’re going to my parent’s cottage in Cape Cod for the weekend,” Danielle told me happily. “Sam wants to make it there before it’s dark so we can turn on the heat and all that.”

            I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not allowed to leave yet— oof!

            Casey removed her elbow from my gut and smiled at the couple in front of us. “Ignore Holly. Apparently she doesn’t know how to deal with her feelings today.”

            “Hey,” I protested.

            Danielle laughed. “Okay. I’ll see you all around, okay?”

            “Okay,” I mumbled, going in for one last hug. “Have a good life…” My throat hitched and tears gathered at my eyes again. “Stay together.”

            Lance patted my shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Holly.”

            As I watched the pair walk away, I couldn’t help but to think back to one of the first days I’d spent with Chris after school. He’d called that they would start dating. And here they were today, still together. It was incredible.

            “Con-grat-u-lations!”

            This time I was prepared for the person throwing their body onto me. From this point on I knew if I ever heard the phrase for good wishes, I’d be expecting someone attempting to cause me pain. Judging by the voice, this time it was Jeremy. Unfortunately, he weighed much more than Casey, so he literally knocked me off my feet.

            “So,” he started, grinning down at me. “How does it feel to not be a high school student anymore? How does it feel to never have to come back here again?”

            “I… I…”

            Lance sighed. “Here we go.”

            Tears rolled down my face again and Jeremy, for once, looked panic stricken. “Shit, did I hurt you? I’m sorry,” he apologized, his body tensing. “Shit. Chris is going to kill—”

            “Jeremy, get off her.”

            Jeremy immediately rolled off of me, hopping to his feet. “H-hey, Topher.”

            My eyes fell upon Chris as he stepped over me, frowning. “What are you— why are you crying? What did Jeremy do?”

            “What makes you think it was me?” Jeremy said, offended.

            “Who else?”

            “Don’t hit me!” Jeremy cried, flinching and Chris raised his hand.

            “It wasn’t Jeremy,” Casey cut in, saving Jeremy at the last second. “Holly’s been unusually emotional today.”

            Chris stared down at me. “Isn’t she usually emotional?”

            “Well, yes, but…”

            He sighed lightly, holding out his hand. “Off the ground, Ms. Evers.”

            I took his hand and he swiftly pulled me to my feet, turning me around so he could brush the dust off my back. I snuffled, dragging my finger under my eye to catch any running eye makeup. “It’s not that I’m emotional. I just wasn’t thinking graduation through.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I mean, I was only thinking about you,” I admitted sheepishly. “So it’s kind of a shock to realize by being with you, I’m also losing some of my friends…”

            Jeremy frowned. “You’re not losing friends, Holly. You’ll only lose them if you choose to. If you want to keep them, keep in touch.”

            Lance threw him an impressed look. “I think that’s the most serious thing you’ve ever said in your life.”

            He stood up a little straighter. “I can be pretty serious…” He and Casey exchanged mysterious looks.

            I chose to ignore them. “Chris, do you have to stay after to help clean up?”

            A grin broke out across his face. “Not this time. Somehow I got the clear to leave.”

            “I know why,” Jeremy pitched him, a smug expression coming onto his face.

            “Why?”

            “So Chris gets a break from all the girls trying to get with him,” he explained with a wink. “That’s why I’m being sent home too. Four girls have already confessed to me today.”

            I gawked at him. “Seriously?”

            “Seriously.”

            “What about you?” I asked, turning to Chris.

            He shrugged. “One or two… or ten.”

            Jeremy narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying.”

            “Are you upset I have more high school girls that like me?”

            “No!”

            Lance rolled his eyes. “You too are so immature. In front of your girlfriends, nonetheless.”

            “I love my girlfriend very much,” Jeremy informed him, gathering Casey up in his arms and giving her a kiss.

            My jaw nearly dropped. “Jeremy!”

            “What?”

            I scanned the area quickly, seeing if anyone was watching. Luckily, everyone seemed too busy with themselves to notice. “You could still get in trouble!” I hissed at him.

            He shook his head, grinning. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I’m done teaching gym. They have a new teacher for next year. I was a substitute, remember?”

            My body relaxed a little. “Oh, that’s nice.”

            “So that means I get to go to college full time with you guys,” he said excitedly. “We all agreed to take the cooking course, right?”

            “Right,” Casey, Lance, and I responded, Lance a little reluctantly. We’d basically black mailed him into it.

            “Yeah, I can’t wait to take it,” Chris commented sarcastically.

            I nudged Chris in the side with my elbow. “Don’t be a downer.”

            “I’m not. I’m just throwing in my opinion.”

            Jeremy smirked. “No one cares about your opinion. If we had, Holly and I would’ve gotten you a dog, not a at.”

            “Speaking of cats…”

            “What about them?”

            “I forgot to feed Milkshake this morning.”

            I did a double take. “What?”

            “I forgot to feed him,” he reiterated offhandedly. “Oh well—”

            “Chris! That’s awful! The poor kitten! We have to go feed him!” I demanded, snatching my cap from off the ground. “No more dilly-dallying! Let’s go!”

            Surprised by my response, he lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to say goodbye to anyone else?”

            “I can do it on Facebook,” I returned. “Apparently I need to take care of my boyfriend’s kitten. Even though he’s an adult. Who should know responsibility.”

            Chris rolled his eyes. “Please.”

            Casey giggled. “You guys are cute.”

            “More like awkward,” Lance interjected.

            I kicked him. “Shut up, Lance.”

            “She just wants to go to Chris’s and jump in his bed,” Jeremy said to Casey in a carrying whisper.

             My face flushed. “I do not!”

            “Holly, I just have to grab my keys and coat from my classroom and lock it up before we leave,” Chris notified me. “You can come with me if you want.”

            I nodded, eager to escape my friends who seemed to enjoy embarrassing me. “I’ll see you all at Aaron’s party, right?”

            “Wouldn’t miss it,” Jeremy responded, sending me a wink.

            “It’s Lexi’s too,” Lance pointed out.

            I waved him off. “Okay, okay. See you guys later then.”

            “Have fun!” Casey chirped.

            Making our way to Chris’s classroom was a lot tougher than I expected. Every five seconds someone would stop him, asking for a picture, or a hug, or for him to sign their yearbook. A few of my friends stopped me too, putting in a last farewell before they went cross country to college. By the time we actually made it to his classroom, I was teary-eyed again. Being in the room made it worse.

            Out of all the classrooms in the school, this one was the most important. If it hadn’t been for biology, I would never have met Chris. If it wasn’t for this room, we wouldn’t have been as close as we were. It was important to me. After I left today, I would probably never see it again. Unless I visited the school, which I didn’t exactly plan on doing.

            “Hey, Holly, come here.”

            Chris’s voice brought me out of my reverie and I sauntered over to him, standing next to his desk. “Yeah?”

            A wicked grin spread across his face. “Should we carve our initials into my desk? I don’t know if I’ll have this exact same one, but I’ve always wanted to do it.”

            “Is this the highschooler Chris making himself known?”

            “Maybe,” he responded mysteriously. “I have a knife…”

            I grinned. “Okay, let’s do it.”

            “I’m putting the blame on you if anyone asks.”

            “Hey!”

            He laughed. “It’s fine since you’ll never be coming back here again.” Producing a knife out of the top drawer of his desk, he pushed aside a pile of loose paper on the top. “Here’s fine. What should I carve?”

            My mind flashed back to the beach trip, where I’d carved our initials into the post and put a heart around them. “Put our initials in a heart,” I ordered. “I did the same to a post at the end of the rock pier during the beach trip.”

            “You did?” he asked, looking amused.

            I blushed a little bit. “Um, yeah. It was before we were dating so…”

            He laughed. “We’ll have to go back and look at it then.”

            “Yeah,” I agreed. “I thought it was kind of childish at the time, but…”

            “We can all afford to be childish sometimes,” he replied, pressing the tip of the knife into the soft wood. “Like right now.”

            My eyes followed his hand as he carved his initials first before doing mine. The letters looked nice, but as he sculpted the heart, he didn’t proportion the sides right, so it reminded me of a little kid’s drawing. Which I had to comment on.

            “I’d like to see you do better,” he muttered, tossing the knife back into the top drawer. “It’s harder than it looks.”

            “No, it’s okay,” I insisted, holding my in laughter. “I like seeing you like this.”

            “Like what?”

            “So carefree.”

            He pursed his lips at me. “You always say that.”

            “It’s because most of the time you’re serious.”

            “I’m not that serious.”

            “But you’re not exactly playful either.”

            He frowned. “Well…”

            “I like both sides to you though,” I told him, smiling.

            His lips curved up into a smirk. “Oh, I know. Who wouldn’t? If I’m this handsome then—”

            “Narcissist.”

            “You like that side of me too.”

            Now it was my turn to laugh. “Yeah, I guess. Confidence gets you somewhere.”

            Nodding, he patted the desk. “Well Old Faithful, have a nice vacation. See you next year.”

            “That’s right… You get to come back,” I muttered, ignoring the fact he was talking to an inanimate object.

            “Aren’t you glad to be out of here?” he asked, frowning at me. “Usually most high schoolers are happy to graduate. More than happy. Ecstatic.”

            I snorted. “Yeah, at the beginning of the year. It’s scary after. You worry about being accepted into colleges, what your major should be, how you’ll afford everything… I hate thinking about it. Believe it or not, I’m going to miss the structured classes here.”

            “You’ll be fine,” Chris told me, wrapping an arm around my waist and bringing me closer to his body. “Lance, Casey, and Jeremy will be with you next year, anyway.”

            “And I’ll be living with you.”

            He grinned and nodded. “And you’ll be living with me.”

            “We should set my mom up with someone,” I sighed. “That way she won’t be lonely.”

            “I might be able to help with that.”

            I blinked. “Really?”

            “I’m a teacher. I know a lot of elder men,” he notified me. “Just give me some time and see if she’d be okay with a blind date.”

            “Okay!”

            He chuckled, kissing the top of my head. “So do you want to kiss your desk, or can we leave?”

            “We can leave,” I responded, my gaze lingering on the desk front and center. “Make sure only guys sit in that seat in the future.”

            “I’ll try.”

            After taking one last glance around, I stepped out of the classroom, closely followed by Chris. I watched as he turned the key, locking the room. It kind of symbolized my high school career ending. That chapter of my life was over, closed and done with…. Although it’d be more accurate if I didn’t know the janitors would be unlocking it to clean in the near future.

            “Let’s get out of here,” Chris urged, taking my hand in his. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

            “What are we going to get?”

            “I was thinking of ordering pizza at my place. You know, like what we had the first time you came over?”

            I gave him an impressed look. “You remember that?”

            “I also remember you spilled cheese on your shirt.”

            “Ah… of course you would remember that.”

            He squeezed my hand. “Congratulations,

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