He Loves Me Not

Graduation

Tiara was standing in her bathroom mirror curling her hair. She had thirty minutes left before she was late, and she'd just started her hair. Her bathroom door opened, and Destiny stepped into the bathroom.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked. "It's almost time to go, you don't have time to curl."

"Then what am I supposed to do with it?" Tiara pointed up to her head and turned to her older sister.

"Okay, let big sister fix it." She took the flat iron from the counter and straightened out the piece that Tiara had just curled. She went around and curled the end of Tiara's hair instead of curling her entire head. Once she had her cap on you wouldn't be able to see the top of her head anyway. After her first year back Destiny kind of settled down. It was like a night and day switch. She went to school being her normal bitchy self and then came back being nice. It was weird but Tiara didn't complain because she finally stopped making her do all the chores, she didn't want to do herself.

"Come on we have to go. You waste all the picture time, so we don't have time for that before it's time to go." She grabbed Tiara by the arm and pulled her from the bathroom.

"Wait my gown." Tiara spun around and began to look around the room.

"You have it on," Destiny replied.

The two of them climbed the stairs to get into the main part of the house. Tiara stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at the remainder of her bedroom. All her things were packed into boxes and ready to be moved into her dorm room. Her actual last day of high school was two days ago, but today was her high school graduation and it felt like she was the most important day of her life.

"Have you talked to your boyfriend today?" Destiny asked.

"He's busy." Tiara replied.

"Busy? Yall are going to the same place" Destiny said making a face.

"Right, I'm going to run into him either way." Tiara said.

Yall gotta be the strangest couple I've ever seen." Destiny replied.

Tiara snorted. "It's not like you and Uncle Quavious are any better.?" Tiara asked her.

"Why do you call him that?" Destiny asked.

"Because that's what he is" Tiara answered.

"Come on, we need to go." Tiara's mom said as she ushered everyone toward the front door. They climbed into the car and made their way to the gym so that Tiara could get out and get in line with the rest of her classmates. Ten minutes later Tiara was sitting in her seat and Kirsnick was nowhere to be found. They called her name, and she went up to the stage and shook hands with her principle before he handed her the holder for her diploma. She was in the top percentile of the class, so she was called before all the rest of the students in alphabetical order. She took her chance on stage to look around the crowd of her classmates and she still couldn't find him.

When they called Kirsnick's name it was like he appeared out of nowhere and walked across the stage to get his diploma cover. On his way back to his seat he locked eyes with me and smiled. I gave him a thumbs up and he laughed a little before going back to his seat.

After the graduation ceremony was over the students went back to their home rooms to get their actual diploma before they could leave. Tiara and Kirsnick's homeroom were right next to each other so as soon as he got his diploma, he was pushing his way into her class to get to her.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly.

"For?" Tiara asked.

"I wanted to pass by and see you before we left, but my mom got caught up with the pictures and I was late getting ready because I had to get a line-up this morning." He wrapped his arms around Tiara's shoulder and pulled her close.

"It's fine. I avoided the pictures." Tiara said to him. Tiara and Kirsnick walked out of her classroom and down to the front of the school where everyone parents were standing waiting for their kids to come out of the building.

"I got you a gift." Kirsnick said.

"What?" Tiara asked. Kirsnick went into the pocket of his dress pants and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He handed her the paper and took her diploma and cover so that she could look at it.

"I didn't think it would go through," Kirsnick said as he watched Tiara read the paper. It was a college acceptance letter to the same university she had gotten into. Tiara had got in easily, but she was at the top of her class and her teachers were lining up to give recommendation letters so that she could get into whatever school she wanted. Kirsnick was a different story, his grades were crappy at best and his behavior in class cut his recommendation choices short, but somehow, he pulled it off.

"How?" Tiara asked.

"What do you mean?" Kirsnick asked.

"You got in, and you barely had the grades to graduate." Tiara said.

He pushed his hands into his pockets and smiled. "My mom went to school with a lady who goes to church with the guy that over admissions, I had to take some tests, and do some extra work last semester, but I did it."

"So, we're all going to the same college?" I asked him.

"What do you mean we all?" he asked.

"Hey! What yall looking at?" Courtney appeared out of thin air and grabbed the paper from Tiara's hands. "You got in?" she asked kirsnick with a big smile.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Aww this is perfect. We can all get an apartment and live off campus and all be roommates." Courtney was going a mile a minute. Tiara's never seen her friend get so excited over something, she says that she is focused on grades and school, but they all know she's just ready to get away from her parents. "Look at us, the whole gang going to college together."

"Yeah, I can't let my girl go off to school and try to leave me for some doctor. I love her too much." He said, throwing his arm over Tiara's shoulder.

"You love me?" I asked.

"Damn," he cursed. "I didn't mean to say that part out loud." he said with a smile.

"Hmm, sure you didn't." Tiara said with a laugh. 

The End