Significance (Completed)

Significance - Chapter One

Copyright 2012  Shelly Crane                    All rights reserved

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One

            I waited for this day, for this one thing to complete me. To wrap up seventeen and three quarter years of my life and set a pretty bow on it in the form of a graduation cap. I waited for this one sheet of paper to tell me that I had done something right.

          I sat in my assigned seat, along with my classmates, in alphabetical order in front of the gym. The ones up front were in order by achievements, their faces lit with the relief of scholarships and graduation parties with gifts and family and friends...and getting out of this town.

          I was numb. I had waited for this moment, but now, I didn’t feel good inside. I didn’t feel complete, didn’t feel achieved. I felt like I’d slid by and barely made it, which was exactly what I’d done. I despised school. I was in the early release program for students who work after school, so we got out at 1:00 instead of 3:00 like everyone else. I was barely here and when I was I didn’t want to be.

          I know I sound bitter. Believe me, I know. But I was seventeen, graduating a year early, and on the fast track to being valedictorian or whatever else, but things happened to me that I just couldn’t handle. And so, there I was, sullen, slightly unhappy and skidding by.

          The ‘things’ I speak of, well, number one was that my mom left. She was an upstanding, stay at home mom, PTA loving, frugal grocery shopping, coupon clipping guru of the community. And she just left us, just like that. She decided out of nowhere that my dad had been holding her back all these years. She didn’t love him and she needed time to start a new life, without me there to pester her. So she did.

          She moved to California along with every cent in my dad’s checking account and the one supposed to be for my college fund. I wanted to laugh at the Cali cliché, but I guess it didn’t suit her for long. She moved somewhere else, but I refused to speak to her anymore when she called. All she ever talked about was how sorry she was, that she just couldn’t do it anymore, that she was happy now, that I didn’t know what it was like to live with my dad. Yeah right. I’d counter that I was the only one still living with him and she’d hang up.

          I was sure her newest boyfriend, who was ten years younger than her, could console her.   

          So here we are, present day, graduation day. I was waiting patiently for the m’s to roll around so I could grab my diploma and hear the one person that’ll be in the stands clap for me, my dad.

          I glanced up in front of me to see Kyle looking back. He smiled. “You look like you’re in your own little world back there. You ok?”

          “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.”