Invisible String (w|w high school romance)

Graduation

Riley POV:

This day could not come fast enough, yet? I was kind of sad about it. Not sad about leaving high school. Nobody actually likes high school. I was sad that after this year, I won't see a lot of my friends anymore. I am beyond excited to go to college but I'm heart broken at the number of people in my life that I may never see again. It's making graduation very bittersweet.

A couple of weeks ago Harper moved back in with her parents. I miss waking up next to her every day but I know that she needs this time with her parents. Plus, it won't be long until we are sharing a room at UNC.

The facetime notification popped up on my phone and I smiled when I saw Harper's name on the screen. I quickly accepted the call before propping the phone up on the bathroom counter.

"Hey gorgeous. What are you up to?" Harper asked.

"Not much. I'm just curling my hair for the ceremony." I replied.

"I love when you curl your hair. You look so pretty. I mean, you look pretty all the time." Harper started rambling which made me laugh.

"Thank you. Just in case you don't already know, you look beautiful all the time too." I replied.

"Hey are we going to Josh's end of the year party tonight after graduation?" Harper asked.

"I was planning on it but if you want we can just stay home and do other activities instead." I said with a flirtatious tone and a smirk.

"Why don't we do both?" Harper flirted back.

"Sounds like a great idea." I replied.

"Is your dad home tonight? I'd invite you over but I don't know how my parents would feel about you spending the night. We just started getting back to a good place and I don't want to ruin that. I want to give them time to get used to the idea of us." Harper said.

"I completely understand. Don't worry about it. And yeah my dad is working the night shift today so that he could make it to graduation. Sooooo we will have the whole house to ourselves." I replied.

Harper had the biggest smirk across her face. "I can't wait."

"Hey Riley! We have to leave in 20 minutes! We don't want you being late to your own graduation!" My dad yelled from downstairs right as I was finishing curling my hair.

"I'm almost ready!" I yelled back down before turning my attention back to Harper. "I guess that's my queue." I said.

"Yeah I have to get going soon too. Hey don't forget to get a picture with me afterwards. I want to post how proud I am of my beautiful girlfriend." Harper said with a smile.

"I won't forget and I'm proud of you too. I'll see you later. Bye love you."

"Love you too."

After I ended the facetime with Harper, I put the finishing touches into my hairdo before walking out of the bathroom and towards my bedroom. My cap and gown were laid neatly on the bed. I put on the dark green and gold gown before putting on the cap carefully as to not mess up my hair.

Before I went downstairs, I took one last look in the mirror. As I looked at myself in the mirror I thought of a quote by soccer player Mia Hamm. It goes "Somewhere behind the athlete you've become, and the hours of practice, and the coaches who have pushed you, is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back ... play for her."

That quote really resonates with me, especially in this moment. As I look at myself in my cap and gown, all I can think about is all the hours of hard work I put in to get here. I put blood, sweat, and tears into everything that I did and it got me here. As much as I hate school, standing here right now makes me realize that it was all worth it.

As I was about to leave the room I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I walked over to my night stand to where my silver cross necklace was. Cameron had given it to me the day before his first deployment. It was his and I've worn it every day since. Before every soccer game, during every test, and at each and every one of my college recruitment camps, I always had Cam's necklace with me. I smiled sadly to myself as I put the necklace on. Even though he is no longer here, it's comforting to know that I always carry a piece of him with me.

I took one last look in the mirror before walking downstairs to meet my dad. "You ready to graduate?" He asked with a smile. I reached my hand up to hold the cross necklace around my neck. "Yeah I'm ready." I said confidently.

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Harper POV:

I cannot begin to explain how boring graduation ceremonies are. It's just hours and hours of sitting while all those people give their speeches about the same things. Then you have to stand in a line for a good ten minutes while you wait for your five seconds of fame and walk across the stage to receive your diploma.

I think it's safe to say that I was more excited when the ceremony ended than I was when I got my diploma.

After the ceremony officially concluded, I walked over to the far side of the field near the soccer nets. That's where I promised to meet my parents and friends for pictures. My parents were the first ones to come rushing through the field gates with an army of people behind them all rushing to meet their kids.

"We're so proud of you!" My mom yelled as she ran over and pulled me into a tight hug. I laughed as my had ran over as well and pulled the both of us into a big group hug.

"Come on Tom let's get some pictures with our baby." My mom said as we pulled back from the hug.

"Mom I'm literally an adult. I'm not your baby anymore." I whined, embarrassed.

"Don't you dare say that. You will always be my little girl." She replied sternly.

When she said that I thought back to a couple months ago when she had kicked me out of the house. "No daughter of mine will be gay." Is what my dad had said a few months ago. As I looked between them now I smiled. I am so happy at how far we've come since then. Moving back in with them has really helped mend our relationship, even though I will be leaving again in a few months.

"Here let me take some pictures of you guys." A manly voice said. I turned to see Riley and her father walking over with huge smiles across their faces. My dad handed Riley's dad his phone before coming to stand next to me and my mother. Riley's dad snapped a few pictures before my dad spoke.

"Riley get in here." He said. Riley looked confused at first until she noticed that my dad was completely serious. She smiled and walked over. She stood next to me with my parents on each side of us.

"Okay now some of just the girls." My mom said as her and my father stepped out of the way. Riley's dad snapped a few pictures of the two of us together, my arm around Riley's waist and hers around mine as she leaned into my shoulder. After he got a few normal pictures of the two of us just smiling, I leaned down and kissed Riley on the cheek as her dad snapped a few more pictures.

After we were done, Riley and her dad took some pictures together before the rest of our friend group came over. Josh, Drew, Sal, Kylie, Lexi, and Grace all came over with huge smiles on their faces.

"We need some group photos!" Drew yelled with excitement. Everyone walked over and joined Riley and I in front of the soccer field. All of our parents crowded around, each snapping their own pictures.

"Now who is ready for the grad party of the century?" Joshed said excitedly.

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Originally I had planned for the grad party to be apart of this chapter but I have some scenes planned that would make this chapter super long and would take me a while to update. So this is just a filler chapter before the grad party.

Oh and what I mean by having "scenes planned", is that there will be some spicy stuff next chapter. I hope your all looking forward to that.