Interlinked

Chapter 43

Check link for Interlinked - The last message that will be on the last chapter of this book.

thanks to Iynor

for lending me her voice.

Notice the tenses so you do not mix up between the flashbacks and the present.

Chapter 43:

Sadness is overrated in a world where the sun shines bright on a summer day, and in a place where roses are revived after a storming blizzard but sometimes... sadness is nothing because of this dark voice in our heads that tells us that everything we tried to do won't change the image we passed to people. In a world of disoriented colors that show beauty but reflect disgust in me, personally, I believed that not even on my graduation day things will get better.

When Mr. and Mrs. Flores occupied themselves with telling others how to behave when receiving their diploma, I kept my stare focused on Ray and I slightly smiled when she looked at me before darting her gaze to her locked hands.

A while before the rehearsals for the graduation ceremony started, she walked in with Laura and oddly Amanda on her right.

The white dress hugged her small body, but she looked like she put on a few pounds after she finished therapy. She looked healthy and quite breath-taking and brave for she did not wear the headband but instead she allowed everyone to see that her hair was growing back.

She was standing right in front of me in a black robe that reached above her black heeld, with a horizontal blue ribbon dangling from her shoulders - that same robe she's wearing is worn by everyone, including me but she seemed to be the only person my eyes were staring at that day.

"When you hear your name, you head to the stage. Greet with the right hand and take the diploma with the left hand." Mrs. Flores said to a group of students and I turned around to look at them.

"What if one of us is left handed?" A guy, whose name I don't know, asked before he adjusted his crooked glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Right hand, shake. Left hand, take diploma. No buts." Mrs. Flores disturbingly repeated and I rolled my eyes before I looked back to where Ray was standing. Oddly, she was no longer there. Stretching my neck as I stood on the tips of my toes, I looked for her head in the crowd but when I saw her talking to Zachary with Amanda on her side, I took a step back.

Many things had happened in the two weeks we decided to stop talking to each other.

"Hey, stranger." Laura chirped, her cap blocking the entire view in front of my - including Raquel and her friends. She looked well adorable, and I cannot say much because that's how she'll always be: adorable. Loose curls buried under the graduation cap. Make up coloring her visage unlike Ray who had barely anything on, except for that shade of black on her eye lids.

"Hey," I flashed a bright smile in which she returned immediately. She looked pretty anxious to be quite honest, and I was not sure whether or not it was good kind of anxious or the bad one. "Excited?" I asked her and she nodded before permitting a low laugh.

"You?"

"Nah." I shook my head with a pout on my face, my eyes are scanning the room for Ray once again. "I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed and come here. Thank goodness for Camila's jackhammer voice or I wouldn't be here right now."

"But it's 5:30." Laura scrunched her nose and furrowed her eyebrows. I nodded with a slop sided grin.

"That's my point exactly."

"You're unbelievable." She shook her head in defeat.

"Where's Richard?" I asked her, trying to change the subject.