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9

"You can't come to my graduation," I told my parents.

I was graduating this Friday, and apparently we hadn't had a conversation about it yet. Both of my parents looked hurt as I spoke.

"Why not?" Dad asked.

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Kind of defeats the purpose of what we've been doing for the past four years, doesn't it?"

"You can't be at your graduation alone!" Poppa protested.

"I'm not going," I told them.

They both broke out in a new set of protests. I rolled my eyes.

"You can't miss your own graduation," Dad said.

"Why not? It's long, it's boring, I don't know half the people there and I don't like the other half."

"It's a milestone Tess. You worked hard, you deserve to celebrate!" Poppa said.

"I didn't work that hard."

"Yes you did. Do you remember how badly you wanted to switch back to homeschooling freshman year?" Dad reminded me.

I sighed. They were not letting this go.

"Because the girls were mean, not because the work was hard," I said. I hadn't told them that before. They were both visibly surprised.

"Why didn't you tell us the girls were mean to you?" Dad asked.

I shrugged.

"I expected it. I looked like this, I was an easy target," I said, gesturing to my scars.

"We would have done something if you told us!" Dad sounded outraged. "We could have sued the school, we could have—"

"And then what?" I cut him off. He paused, taken aback. "Exactly. It was fine. It didn't even bother me that much after awhile. If you guys need me to celebrate, we can have a graduation party. But I'm not really interested in going to graduation."

"Tessa, come on," Poppa tried to coax me. "You deserve to walk across the stage and get your diploma. You've earned it. A year early even. And we'd love to get to watch you do it."

"You guys sound like the boy " I told them. I really needed to find a better way to refer to him.

They did sound like Pietro. I had been surprised when Pietro had been so dead set on me attending graduation. He rarely pushed me to do things I didn't want to, but he was pretty determined that I would attend my own graduation.

"I knew I liked that boy," Dad said smugly.

I sighed. I was beat. Not only was I going to graduation, but so were my parents. And probably a few aunts and uncles.

"Fine. But can you guys just be like lowkey? I like my life of anonymity."

"I promise. People won't notice us," Poppa told me.

I had to laugh as he said it.

"Yea they will," I said, scrunching my nose. "And that's okay. But no more spectacle than necessary, okay?"