𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐘

TWENTY ONE | THE LAST GOODBYE

[ GRADUATION DAY ]

Three full semesters of school had passed since Jade and Jonathon pulled the plug on their relationship, and today would be her last chance to say goodbye to him.

Transitioning from seeing Jonathon nearly everyday to never at all had been extremely difficult for Jade to adjust to, and it involved a lot of secret breakdowns. Despite how much better Jade had gotten at opening up about her feelings, she was not one to let others see her cry.

And after her and Jonathon ended things, she cried a lot.

It had been her first ever heartbreak, and the gaping hole in her heart that he left behind still hadn't fully closed. When the breakup first happened, she felt like she was walking around with an open gunshot wound, and knowing that he was always around only added salt to the injury.

She still had to walk the halls of Sonder University, and she had other classes that led her to the Liberal Arts Building. Some days she would pass his class, and while she always made a conscious effort to keep her eyes peeled away from his door, part of her would hope to bump into him.

But she never did.

There had been a very small handful of incidences where she'd catch his gaze from quite some distance, but she was always the first to look away. It brought her comfort to know he still had his eyes on her, but she hated it at the same time.

It hurt too much.

Some days she wished that they could just hate each other—that he couldn't be bothered to spare her even a second of his time. Maybe if he acted coldly towards her, it would make it easier to let him go.

The last time they exchanged glances had been about a month ago. The look of longing hadn't left his eyes. She often questioned if that meant something, but if it did, it didn't certainly didn't change anything. Jade was finally about to leave SU for good, and Jonathon hadn't once reached out. So she figured the fact that she would no longer be a student wasn't a good enough reason for him to want her again.

She was graduating today, and she couldn't be any less excited. It was supposed to be a happy day. Her mother was attending the commencement ceremony with Amelia—it would be the first time her mother showed up to watch Jade do anything.

Yet it didn't matter to her.

The one person she wanted to share this accomplishment with would be present for the event, but he wouldn't be there for her. She hated how hung up she still was on the man, but he had held her hand the entire time she stitched herself back together just to send her back off into her new life alone. It was a god awful feeling to finally understand what it was like to have "her person" only to lose them.

She didn't get enough time with him. The happiness she had fought for was so short lived.

The ceremony took place on campus at SU's private stadium. There were less than a hundred students in her graduating class, so the event was relatively short. Jade was glad to be concluding her academic career, but accepting her diploma from Dean Gallagher didn't mean all that much to her. Considering how intelligent she was, getting through graduate school had pretty much been a breeze for her. She felt ready to take on much bigger things at this point in her life.

By the end of the ceremony, Jade knew she couldn't leave SU without saying goodbye to her former professor. So after meeting up with her attendees, she asked Amelia to stall her mother while she darted off towards Jonathon's classroom. She wasn't certain that he'd be there, but it was the only place she could think to try.

Her feet carried her so quickly and so instinctively to the room that for a moment, she forgot the way its familiarity had begun to fade from her heart. It felt like muscle memory for her to run there—yet these days, whenever she closed her eyes to imagine that she was back at her desk watching him teach, the details of the room felt hazy.