A gift for a Queen

39

1250

Theodore's POV.

Graduation day.

I'm rushing around the house frantically looking for my graduation cap, with the help of Charlie, of course. Aaron shouts from the laundry room; "I found it!!" I could practically scream in happiness. Charlie breathes a breath of relief before taking a seat on the couch while I rush to take my cap from Aaron.

"Thank you Aaron, you are amazing," I tell him, gingerly taking the cap from his hands.

"Thanks I know," he replies faking a hairflip, "Also I hope you don't mind, I invited my parents, I know my mom views you as a second son," Aaron states patting my shoulder.

"I don't mind at all, I'm grateful they want to be there," I smile putting the cap on.

"Aaron take pictures of him before we leave," Charlie shouts.

"Guess I gotta take pictures of you Theo, let's go to the back it's prettier, and there's more sun," Aaron shrugs, making me smile. I'm so grateful he's moved in with us, and that his service is over.

Aaron takes a ton of pictures of me and then when we've decided that's enough we head inside, get Charlie and then we leave for the ceremony. Once we arrive I spot Naveeah, our Valedictorian, almost immediately, she's with two people I almost never hear about, her parents.

"Nav!" I shout, watching her turn her head.

"Theo!" she exclaims waving me over.

"You're the Valedictorian, how's it feel?" I tease, knowing she couldn't care less.

"Shut up. Anyways Theo this is my dad and this is my papa," Naveeah introduces.

"Hi, I'm Theodore, but you can call me Theo," I say putting my hand out for a hand shake.

"I'm Max and that's Phillip," her dad introduces, shaking my hand.

"Its nice to meet you both," I state with a smile.

"Teddy!" I hear a voice shout from somewhere behind me, I turn and see Ant jogging towards us. When he arrives he wraps an arm around my shoulder and says, "I have been looking everywhere for you."

"I've just been here," I respond tangling my fingers with his, "This is Max and Phillip, they're Nav's Dad and Papa," I say gesturing with my freehand.

"Nice to meet you, I'm one of Naveeah's friends," Anthony introduces, with a short wave which the two of them reciprocate.

We continue chatting for a little while longer and then we separate for the ceremony. Coppersea doesn't say names in Alphabetical order, and instead has us hold name tags with our plans after high school and we hand it to the person announcing us, so Ant and I decide to sit together. Finally the ceremony starts, the principal says a lot of words and then Naveeah steps up to the podium.

"Well class of 2024, its been a long as heck ride. For those of you that know me, you know I'm censoring myself, so if I fail at any given point in my speech just let it be, like the beatles did. Moving on as most of you teachers know, I'm an infuriating student, and I intend to take that with me through my college years. As most of you, my peers, know I'm the model student in terms of my grades, what most of you don't know is I have waited till I had three minutes to turn in something for AP classes to write the dang thing, how did I survive?" she asks incredulously, "In all seriousness I was, and still am, a slacker through and through, and though my grades, and gpa, certainly do not reflect that. My parents have pushed me, and I could have graduated last year but no my dad wanted me in free education as long as physically possible," Naveeah gets cut off.

"I'd say it again in a heartbeat!" comes the booming voice of Max.

"I know you would dad, moving on from that embarrassing interruption. Class of 2024, you are the drama seekers, the nerds, and the slackers when it's boiled down. If you feel like any of those three descriptions don't fit you, take a look in the fucking mirror. Sorry! I told you I'm trying. This year was one of the best years of my high school career, and I say that because I got a girlfriend, I completed my first year of college, I made a best friend, and on top of that I got to be involved- ish, in a scandal thank you baseball team. Oh one more thing before I go, Tyler Schwartz, this is from Violet: You should wear a condom on your head because if you're going to act like a dick you might as well dress like one," she states closing her speech, causing an eruption of laughter.

Naveeah walks off the stage and takes her seat next to Emerald who gives her a big kiss on the lips, mixing their lipstick. We listen to a few more speeches before its time for the names of the graduates to be read off. Finally after name after name Anthony's name gets called and I shout for him, along with his siblings and his mother shouting his name in English. Then its me.

"THAT'S MY BROTHER!!" I hear Charlie scream as loud as she physically can, making the Novikovs scream my name too. I pridefully take my diploma and walk across the stage.

After the ceremony the GSA plus Ant journey to a laser tag place for an 'after party'. This was not Emerald or Naveeah's idea, I know they'd much rather be somewhere else doing something else. When we get to the laser tag place Violet counts everyone and reveals that we have an even number of people, she then counts off people so we're all on two different teams, Ant and I are on different teams. Everyone gears up and we separate to our groups and then we're sent in. Nav and I head to the same place and we're side by side for a little while before she sees Emerald and runs off leaving me alone. Well not for long.

"Teddy?" Ant whispers lowering his laser gun.

"Ant? Shouldn't you be lasering people?" I ask suspicious.

"I should, shouldn't you?" he asks rasing his eyebrows, his hand gesturing to my laser gun that I have yet to use.

"I should, but I won't cause I'm bad," I agree.

"So lower your gun and we can have fun," Ant suggests.

"I am not having sex with you in a laser tag place," I deadpan.

"I was not suggesting that, I wanted to kiss you," Ant states, clearly offended.

"Okay, sure," I respond lowering my gun, which prompts him to walk over to me, cup my chin, and press his lips on mine.

"Don't take this personally," he mumbles against my lips before I hear the sound that plays when you get shot.

"You better fucking run, I am so close to kicking you in the balls right now," I warn, watching his eyes go wide as he scrambles to run away from me.

I hear shouts and then I hear the sound that ends the game. We all leave to see the stats and I note that Anthony's team won, which I could have predicted, and Anthony is the one with the most got. I send a glare in his direction, to which he responds with a derpy smile.

"Woah why the glare?" Nav asks me.

"Anthony fucking tricked me into a peace offering and then he lasered me," I explain not wanting to disclose what he did.

"Oh so you're salty that you probably had a clear shot at him and you didn't take it," Naveeah replies reading between the lines.

One more, sad.