Mark My Words

90 | Audience of One

DREW: Fresh graduate straight otta the shitty public school robe

ROSALIE: Congrats!

DREW: Thank you, thank you
When's your graduation?

ROSALIE: Next week
Frantically trying to maintain valedictorian status

DREW: Explains your severely scattered responses to my texts

ROSALIE: Yeah sorry
I haven't been using my phone much

DREW: Well don't be surprised if you see me in the crowd

ROSALIE: Please do NOT come to my graduation
I beg you

DREW: What? What was that? Come to your graduation? Thank you for the invitation

ROSALIE: DREW I'M SERIOUS

DREW: Haha see ya later 😜

ROSALIE: UGH 😡
How would you even get here?
That's a long drive
Drew come on
You weren't serious were you?

_____

Rosalie's chest ached. She didn't expect her breath to escape her as she approached her high school locker for the last time that semester. She stared up at the number printed in black on a metal plate: 354. The hallways were dimmed for the evening, and only a few of the light panels were on. One just so happened to fall over her and Ray as they listened to the distant sound of the spring track team finishing up their practice.

Rosalie smiled, throat tight as she said, "Remember when people thought Sami was straight?" She turned, ponytail swishing off of her shoulder. Ray was there, shoulder tipped against the locker beside Rosalie's.

"Yeah, I also remember when we thought you were straight, you conniving bitch," Ray said. Rosalie burst into startled laughter and feigned offense.

"Excuse you. Even I thought I was straight," she said, spinning the locker dial. She pulled the door open and set her practice duffle on the ground. As she packed away the last of her things, she said, "I was just thinking about the bet people had on me and Sami. Weird to think that was, what? eight months ago?"

"Yeah, feels like an entire book series ago."

"Not if you read fast."

"You're talking to this dumb bitch with the reading speed of a toddler," Ray said.

Rosalie crumpled to the side, stomach aching from laughing so hard. She pushed herself up, slumped onto the tiles as she rubbed a hand over the side of her face. She knew she'd see an abundance of Ray over June before Nationals, but it hit her then that they wouldn't be seeing much of each other beyond that. Nationals was their cutoff.

Rosalie's chest ached again, but this time, she felt it bubbling behind her eyes in hot, wet tears. She looked up at Ray and managed to hold them back, somehow, as she said, "It sucks that we won't be at the same university."

"You're telling me," she sighed. She crouched down next to Rosalie, long black hair bent where she had tied it up in a ponytail for practice. She shook her hair out and pulled it over one shoulder as she glanced at the lockers across the hall, and the banner over them reading, CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2020. "My dumbass is going to your school, so you'll see a bit of me."

"Your dumb ass?"

"Lennie. I'm talking about Lennie."

"Ah."