Sealed with a Kiss ✔

Chapter Twenty Seven | Sealed with a Kiss

This chapter's dedicated to giant56 for the gorgeous cover on top, thank you!

"YEEEES!" Oliver yells at the top of his lungs, balanced on top of his car in the school carpark. "EXAMS. ARE. FINISHED!"

We all laugh as we watch him to do a little jig that's promptly cut short by Mr Morris coming out of the building and shouting, "Oliver Fink will you get down!"

But even Mr Morris is smiling slightly.

Everyone's smiling. We're grinning and cheering and laughing madly in fact. Exams are finally over. Done and dusted. The last two papers were for Maths and ICT and that means the whole gang are finished (Oliver's somehow made even me call our new muddled group of friends 'the gang; even if it does make me think of Scooby Doo'.) It feels brilliant.

Even though that last Maths paper was pretty awful, all I can think about now that it isn't long before summer. All I'm able to feel is a crusade of relief that this month of exams is over, and with that all the tension, stress and insane amount of pressure.

It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and, in a long time, I can finally breathe.

"So guys, what do you want to do?" Max asks, clapping his hands together. "I say we head to Lily Reagan's, she's having a get-together this evening to celebrate."

For once, I'm up for Lily's party. I'm up for anything.

And it's as though the entire day is on fast forward, in a blur the hours rush by before we head out, they stream by in a hazy, fun and confusing whirlwind during the party and they continue to hurtle past until hours turn into days and days turn into weeks and we've suddenly reached the last day of school.

Our last day has been surprisingly a bit emotional, even though it's not our final year. I think it's because of how much has changed and how much we've changed. Never would I have imagined that I'd be best friends with the likes of Luke Doncaster and Max Murphy. And if someone had told me that everything that happened with Levi Parker will happen to me at the start of September I'd have asked what they were high on.

The final day before summer also includes my last meeting with Mr Hibbert. It's up to me to decide over the summer whether I want to carry on having sessions with him next year.

Once our half hour of meaningless talk about how the year in general has been and 'my feelings' is over and I'm pushing the chair back and standing up in his old, dusty office I feel that familiar wave of nostalgia and happy sort of sadness again.

"So, Ruby, going anywhere nice this summer?" Mr Hibbert asks from behind what is now an even bigger and bushier grey moustache. I don't know he'll manage living with it over the summer.

I shrug, offering him a small grin. "No idea."

He then goes on to tell me all about his plans to visit the Algarve before showing me pictures of his new-born twin nephews and all through the meeting and now he's been so cheery and excited (like everyone is before summer) that I don't have the heart to bring up Granddad and the fact that he won't answer his phone ever since he moved back home. So I just smile, smile, smile and get through it all.

I smile, genuinely, when Ryan gives me a hug when the school bell rings for the last time and wishes me a fun holiday. He's going round the whole country, visiting as many music festivals as he can with his new girlfriend. I smile, not so sincerely, when Elle 'accidently' shoulders past me when she and Stacey are loudly cheering about their getaway to Paris. And I smile, honestly and brightly, when Levi arrives at my locker and offers me a lift home.